Cockpit briefing
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Seems my comments about the Bedford TM driver handbook in this column on October 25 could not have been more timely. I see that LDoY champion Lloyd Richards, reported in this week's issue, thinks truck drivers are given too little information about the vehicles they drive. If this complaint is widely relevant, then it seems that operators — and maybe manufacturers in some cases are being shortsighted: surely nothing is more likely to lead to premature faults and high fuel consumption than a lack of driver briefing. Remember how hopeless some drivers were at coping with the highrevving Foden two-stroke and the early Cummins vees?
Now B.G.F. Nash of GN (CV) Ltd, at Croydon, writes to remind me that there's been a Bedford TK book around for two years. Yes, and very nicely done, too. Some of its advice may seem a bit elementary, but one has to allow for all sorts, and I suspect that much of the apparently simple, illustrated advice in the book is the fruit of bitter experience.
How many drivers do, I wonder, get a decent briefing on new trucks and a handbook to study?