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The tarnished road
Page 7
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OUR DEPUTY EDITOR has returned from his Middle Eastern trip with an alarming story of inefficiency, inadequacy and illegality. What is one to say of managements that send drivers on a 3,000-mile Continental journey in right-hand drive vehicles without sleeper cabs so that for nearly three weeks the men sleep on cot mattresses across the engine cowl? (And what, for that matter, of trade unions that allow it?) What defence can there be for the firms who put their drivers in risk of a Jugoslavian prison sentence by issuing them with forged permits? And what excuse can be advanced for the personnel who are actively profiting from the corruption in Iran?
The pilgrims took the golden road to Samarkand "for lust of knowing what should not be known," according to James Elroy Flecker. All too many of those who take the tarnished road to Tehran seem motivated solely by lust for the fast buck rather than for making a reasonable profit while building a genuine trade route. A shamefully large number of the offenders are British, and some quick cleaning up is needed by the DoE, the trade unions and the operator associations. With their large new stake in Iran the NFC must expect to take the lead, and the appointment of Ken Cook as the chief executive in Tehran is an encouraging sign that probity will get priority there.