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Drivers pipped by the post as 1967 LDOY contest gets under way at Weymouth
Page 61
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BY DEREK MOSES ON Saturday, Weymouth was once again the first centre to stage an eliminating round in the Lorry Driver
of the Year Competition.
Test 3 proved the toughest. Competitors had to drive down a long lane, reverse, and swing to the left through a narrow "gateway" into a diagonallyplaced loading bay.
When class C drivers started going through it soon became clear that the post to the left of the gateway was obstructing most drivers and the post was moved about two feet to the left to widen the gateway.
Despite this modification, as the vehicles grew larger so the number of drivers falling foul of the post increased until, towards the end of the competition, almost every driver lost points as the post was moved each time. Even so, the longer vehicles, and particularly the artics, were still in trouble.
To get sufficient lock on to negotiate the gateway artic drivers had to cross the offside of the main lane, thus incurring penalties. Then they had too much lock to straighten-out again to get into the bay, and lost more points by making a shunt forwards across the line in order to straighten out.
Considering the difficulties encountered on this test, the overall results were quite gratifying and a fairly high standard of driving led to generally lower totals of penalty points incurred compared with last year. Champion driver of the day was Mr. K. Hodge, of Shell' Mex and BP Ltd., Poole, driving an Albion tanker, who incurred 68 penalty points.
Lowest score, however, was that of S. R. Toop, from the United Kingdom Atomic Research Establishment at Winfrith, who amassed only 50 points. Indeed many of the honours went to the Winfrith entrants, who carried off the Team Award with a total of only 224 penalty points. Mr. Toon also won the award for the best C-licence driver.
After last year's rather disappointing total of 62 entrants, together with a poor response to the optional vehicle examination test, Saturday's figure of 79 entrants was more encouraging, and 39 drivers took advantage of the vehicle examination. Winner of this was a last-minute entrant, W. H. Lake of Edmonds Transport Ltd., Weymouth, who was, however, perhaps the unluckiest driver of the day. Mr. Lake won in his class, (G), with 142 penalty points, only to be disqualified for allegedly having left his seat when reversing into the loading bay. A different story from 1958 when he was champion driver at Weymouth's first-ever eliminating round, incurring only 27 penalty points when driving in class C.
One feature of Saturday's contest was the poor showing in the Highway Code section, only two drivers being able to answer all the questions. This was partly due to unfamiliarity with the new road signs.