A. R. Butt Slams A. J. P. Taylor
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IAM not qualified to assess Mr. Taylor's standard of scholastic !earning, but according to the books of reference he is a celebrated historian. I would recommend to him. that he confines his outpourings to events long past and characters long dead.
This statement was made by Mr. A. R. Butt, national chairman of the Road Haulage Association, at the annual dinner-dance of the R.H.A. Coventry, Rugby and North Warwickshire sub-area in Coventry last Friday, when commenting on an article by Mr. A. J. P. Taylor: "Why pick on the private motorist?" in The Sunday Express of December 6. Mr. Taylor had claimed that more accidents and more serious accidents were caused by heavy goods vehicles than by cars and had said that the drivers were put in charge of vehicles that, as shown by spot-checks at Hatfield on July 29, were unfit for the road. Earlier in his speech Mr. Butt pointed out that in 1963 one heavy lorry was involved in an accident causing physical injury for every 11 cars so involved and that because M.o.T. examiners selected the vehicles to be checked according to their apparent need of attention, the actual percentage of defective vehicles on the road might in fact be as low as one per cent.
Referring to events in the past few weeks, when proposing the toast to the Association, Mr. K. P. Bolton, secretary of Coventry Chamber of Commerce, observed that: "A rose by any other name smells mighty like a credit squeeze ". Later, Mr. Bolton mentioned the urgent need for the more extensive use of mechanical handling equipment at terminal points.