WESTM NSTE] HAUL
Page 7
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
Lord Avebury — once Eric Lubbock, ti Liberal MP — is not the Gov eri ment's greatest friend. As far as he concerned it is always engaged dirty deeds or hatching nefarioi plots. But even he was going it some when suggested that the Department Transport would keep secret a repo on lorries if it showed that risks we caused to other road users. Not th Lord Avebury himself accused tl Department, he was simply reportii what "many people" feared. To back up this argument he cited a other report which, he said, had be+ withheld. This was the investigatic into the effect of heavy lorries on ro: surfaces which some had expected be published last week. No wonder Government spokesm: Lord Mowbray and Stourton w quick to jump in and observe, wi commendable restraint, that rather resented the implication th; where road safety and death were issue, any Government departme would conceal matters.
What a pity he spoiled it all by adding: do not think that is true."
Do not think? Your Lordship may the Premier Baron of England, b surely you have enough confidence the newcomers who now run thin to be able to dispense with such qualification? For the rest of the debate, Lo Mowbray was forced to live up to 1 official title, a Lord in Waiting. For 1 like everyone else, could report progress in the search for an effecti anti-spray device for lorries. "This is not a British problem; it i! world-wide problem" he declared, a apparently the world is having little success as this country.
Sponges under American wheels? W it may work in the States, but ot there — if Lord Mowbray's mem( serves him aright — there is a univ sal speed limit of 50 or 55mph when here large lorries on motorways ; allowed to reach 60mph. Indeed, speed seemed to be the o; answer. For, as Lord Mowbray not if heavy goods vehicles, indeed vehicles, kept their speed down 40mph the spray which obscured vision of vehicles behind largely ( appeared. Not that Lord Avebury, for one, co ever visualise a speed limit wl rain is pouring down.