BIRD'S EYE VIEW
Page 24
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BY THE HAWK
• How's this for an appropriate name — seen adorning the rear end of a smart coach and photographed by a CM photographer recently.
On phoning the number we were told that it was connected with Stirchley Travel of Pershaw Road, Stirchley, Birmingham, whose managing director was not available to speak to us — presumably she was coming, or going somewhere.
• Did car thieves know to avoid the Dartford Tunnel or was the £125,000 stolen car scanner installed there on trial simply unable to identify "wanted" cars?
Out of 1,700,000 cars which passed by the machine only nine bona fide stolen cars were spotted. Scientists from the Home Office Research and Development Branch who have scrapped the device discovered that the scanner had problems reading number plates if they were damaged or dirty.
The machine comprised a video camera linked to a local computer which was in turn hooked up to the Police National Computer at Hendon which stores the details of all 367,426 vehicles stolen in Britain each year.
When the scanner spotted a stolen vehicle as it entered the tunnel police were alerted and intercepted it at the exit.
On too many occasions unfortunate drivers were stopped, having then to ex plain that indeed their car had been stolen but since been recovered by the police.
The computer had not been told that these were no longer wanted. Now the machine has been told that it's no longer wanted.
• Operation Roadrunner comes to the rescue yet again with a fund-raising Gala Day on September 14 at Kirklington Park, Oxfordshire.
Last year it sent relief supply trucks to the Sudan which are now moving lifesaving supplies from Port Sudan to the famine affected areas. This year Operation Roadrunner, in association with Scania Trucks, is buying a water tanker to work in the refugee camps of Somalia. The Gala Day will combine fun-runs, fetes and a display of vintage trucks with a line up of the vehicles Roadrunner is using in the Sudan.
Apart from the eight-and 16kilometre sponsored runs attractions will include a fun-fair, parachuting, refreshment tents and much more which should all make for a grand day out.
IN Some years ago Boalloy developed a reputation for slow delivery of its bodywork. The launch of its jig-built and highly standardised Seven-5Liner body range for 7,5 tonners was designed to lay this to rest. Boalloy says it will now body a 7.5 tonner in 24 hours, from receipt of chassis to customer collection.
Boalloy's managing director, Gerald Broadbent, defiantly declared — "we can do it in four hours."
Leyland dealer Kennings of Shrewsbury — until now not a Boalloy customer and described by Broadbent as a "doubting Thomas" — decided to put this claim to the test.
Kennings brought a new Roadrunner 8-12 chassis into Boalloy's Congleton factory, and the driver sat down to wait ; . . A four-man team set about the Roadrunner, first taking off the rear lighting in preparation for fitting sleeved chassis extensions to take the 5.1m (16ft 6in) box body.
After 31/2 hours the preassembled body was swung into position by the overhead crane and lined up with the chassis-mounted sub-frame. The team hit a snag when they found that one of the sideguard stanchions fell directly in front of the Roadrunner's fuel filler cap.
It emerged from the workshop after exactly five hours, with only the rear shutter to be painted and the 1)-registered number plate to be added.
Boalloy had missed Broadbent's target by an hour but it was still a speedy piece of bodybuilding by any standards and Kennings was not quibbling over 60 minutes when bodybuilders normally talk in days and weeks.
• Here's hoping fashioncconscious Harrogate's assertion that what they wear in Harrogate today the rest of the country will be wearing tomorrow, comes true. I have received this photograph from Tankfreight, showing some of the head office staff (at Harrogate, of course) modelling the outfits the company's 50 female staff will soon be wearing.
According to the "blurb" that came with the picture, the tailor-made outfits have been carefully selected to be attractive, practical and comfortable, and are part of the new-look "1986" Tankfreight which includes the projection of a clean, professional and efficient service.
For the benefit of fashion critics, the designs include a blue jacket, grey skirt, white blouse and blue scarf with Tankfreight logo. Appropriately — for a tanker company that is — there is also an attractive blue tank top sweater.