Television fan
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Ray Hardwick, the boss of the Bee Line coach empire and now heavily involved in his Dynair fan enterprise, has always been known for getting his message across. But even he must have been surprised last week that old Auntie BBC, which normally sets its face against any suggestion of free advertising, should have seen fit to devote seven minutes of its peakhour Nationwide programme to him and his fan.
Ray is refusing to pay his rates because his local council in Teesside will not fit Dynair fans to its dustcarts and save — for an outlay of £15,300 — a claimed large slice of its fuel bill. A BBC reporter spent much of the programme extolling the virtues of the fan and trying to screw firm answers out of tight-lipped local government officials.
As it happened I saw the programme and I was surprised at Ray's coverage. One up to him I thought_ But that's not what they thought at the rival Kysor concern, apparently! A very sharp press release has now arrived from Kysor pointing out that their product — a radiator shutter could do the same job for only £7,163. Seems that their nose is out of joint about Ray's publicity. Perhaps they will be happier now that I have banged the drum for them as well.
Cross-roads
There are some evocative routes in the new grid system for European roads agreed in Geneva last week. Inverness to Algeciras is the E 15, Moscow to Cork is the E30 and, in the opposite direction, Shannon to Leningrad is the E20.
The very thought of the network conjures up pictures of long ribbons of three-lane motorways linking countries, continents, climates and cultures. It seems, however, that our highway problems are more national than international, because today the British Road Federation is telling us that our roadbuilding programme has fallen behind those of the Germans and the Italians.
In fact, the problem is even more domestic than that, with London looking again at its lorry route plans. In a radio interview on Monday, a London councillor said "The reason for our traffic jams is that therc too many lorries for the road."
He should read the GLC's report on lorry routeing (just lek by Islington Borough Council) w says that only 2 per cent of Lor traffic comprises heavy lorries.
Volunteers all
I see that the National Regulai for the 1975 CM Lorry Driver o Year Competition, just announce new honorary organ' secretaries for no fewer than centres. The retiring secretaries i those centres have organized a of 57 regional contests over they The secretaries do an enorr amount of voluntary work and happy to publish the names 01 retiring six here, with the numb contests which they have organ
• E. J. Barber (Essex) 12, J. (Dunfermline, now Fife) 10, J Boxall (Coventry and Bucking! shire) 9, L. Newman (Torbay) 9,4 M. Kerr (West Scotland) 9, 1VII M. Burden (Weymouth) 8.
Weak points
Although the DoE from time to gives some figures for the typ( faults which cause the largest nut of failures in the annual test, produce nothing so detailed a! Swedish analysis produced by Svensk Bilprovning, the orga tion responsible for compu annual safety inspections in country.
Unfortunately, from our poi 'view, the Swedish report nowad: confined almost entirely to cars is published under the delighi frank title Weak points of ears it nevertheless provides . interesting hints for operators of commercials based on some o cars inspected. In any eas, provides a fascinating internat comparison not only of the diffebetween makes and models but the changes in fault-proneness year to year with the same model.
It is rather frightening to se frequency with which service b and headlights appear undei "common faults" heading. In particular year, between 10 pet and 20 per cent of the vel inspected had service brake I and between 8 per cent and cent had headlight problems. The report is available pric krone including postage frorr Svensk Bilprovning, Fack, S-1 Villingby, Sweden.
by The Ha