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bird's eye view by the Hawk • Not so Chile

17th August 1973, Page 39
17th August 1973
Page 39
Page 39, 17th August 1973 — bird's eye view by the Hawk • Not so Chile
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Which of the following most accurately describes the problem?

Now I know it must be the Silly Season again. My newspaper tells me that a London Transport Metro-Scania went for an uninvited swim in an ornamental pond in Hackney on its first morning in service; that a British truck fitted with 27 underfloor Asians was stopped in Calais; and that hauliers are making things hot in Chile.

Each incident raises interesting questions. Does the Metropolitan (which is what the bus has been named) now gurgle louder than its guaranteed hush-level decibels?

Has the apprehended lorry driver been charged with using a vehicle to carry farepaying passengers without a psv licence?

Could the Chilean demonstration — with 45,000 hauliers defying the new Government and refusing to turn a wheel—happen here? Not a chance: before you could say solidarity, there'd be five thousand rate-cutters out on the road touting for traffic.

• Awful warning

Rightly, I think, the Road Haulage Association has always set its face against public 'upset" demonstrations to show its strength — though it's been said in some quarters that f the arrest of Bernie Steer and his colleagues ander the Industrial Relations Act had not aappened as and when it did, the Port of London would have been effectively shut by about 100 drivers in that little affair last year.

Still, I think it's no bad thing for the powers :hat be, and the anti-lorry brigade, to see ust how effective a road transport stoppage an be. Reports from Chile's lovely capital, iantiago (one of my most cherished destin ations) say that after 18 days there are Itritical shortages of food, medicines and bet, and industry is suffering. Let the jugger raut-baiters beware.

I Sharp's the word

lo doubt about it, Clifford Sharp's report ,iving with the Lorry has helped to redress he balance of publicity against the heavy ruck. The RHA has just circulated to area ecretaries and public relations committee aembers a batch of photostats of the TV and ress coverage, and it makes a weighty bundle. fore surprising (and all honour to the )cal press in particular for this) is that the reort was given a most fair and sympathetic .eatment on the whole.

Headings like "Rail boost no answer to roblem of the heavy lorry" and "Heavy :ucks are here to stay" abound in the uttings.

More recently, the Sunday Observer has claimed that truck manufacturers are not always honest in comparing the noise of their products with other things. That's news to me, but I rather like another example they give -that when one Boeing 707 takes off the noise is equivalent to the entire population of the world shouting in unison.

• Tit pour tat

One of our French contemporaries, La Vie des Transports, is getting very hot under the collar about the way in which the DoE and the police are picking up Continental vehicles that infringe our regulations — and they seem to be convinced that French hauliers are suffering particular attention.

"We knew," says La Vie, "that the British were controlling entry by environmental watchdogs, and specialists in vehicle weights and dimensions, but a report in The Times is the first we had heard of technical controls being applied for the passage through customs." They were apparently incensed by a story that 17 Continental vehicles had been stopped at British ports for technical defects.

It is the cue for a sharp comment about perfidious Albion's isolationary technical attitude, and failure to be flexible in ensuring the continued progress of road transport. And a hint that the French authorities will not overlook this petite guerre against the Continental heavy lorry when they talk with the British.

There could, say La Vie, be retaliatory measures against British trucks on French soil; but they hope it won't come to that...

• Coop du Nord

A 1929 Morris van with a renovated body once used as a chicken cabin will be rubbing shoulders with the very latest in luxury motorway coaches on Sunday (August 19), the Ribble Enthusiasts' Club tells me. It is organizing its first commercial vehicle run, between Southport and Blackpool.

The oldest entry, a 1913 McCurd van owned by Tate and Lyle, will be the first to leave Southport pleasure beach coach park, at 10.30 am, and there'll be 69 more leaving at one-minute intervals. You can work out the timings for yourselves, if you wish to take station on A565, A59 or at Hutton, Longton by-pass, Preston, Lytham, etc on the way to Blackpool's Middle Walk.

• Air affair

Cranfield means different things to different people — perhaps to CM readers it means research into such problems as articulated vehicle roll-over. But from September 4 to 9 it will mean something very different, because our associate journal Flight International is sponsoring an Air Week at that time, and the Saturday and Sunday (8/9) will be a two-day air pagent.

There'll be air racing, aerobatics with things like Stampes and Lightnings and Gnats and, of course, the Red Arrows. Lots of old aircraft, too.

With the new prosperity in the haulage industry, maybe a few CM readers will really be more interested in the business and light aviation show earlier in the week. If you can afford your own executive jet, it's really the only way to travel — or so they tell me.


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