Vehicles Versus Locusts
Page 79
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
MANY vehieles of different kinds were brought into action to combat locust swarms in Tripolitania, and their work was organized like a military operation. Movement of the insects was reported by radio, and four-wheel-drive spraying vehicles and tankers carrying poison followed them during the day and attacked them on their settling grounds at night.
This went on until the swarm was either destroyed or disappeared out to sea or over the desert. Mr. H. L. Lyons-Jones. former road transport controller in Libya, described such work to the Institute of Road Transport Engineers in London yesterday.
An anti-locust campaign, he said, could last for weeks, and great distances could be covered by the teams, whose mobility depended entirely upon their vehicles.
Sound organization was needed to ensure that fuel. water, and oil were available wherever the vehicles might he. Maintenance and repair squads had to be highly mobile and an adequate supply of tyres assured because covers were susceptible to damage by the rough going.
Mr. Lyons-Jones described the diffi culties of achieving safe and efficient transport operation in a country with freshly gained independence but without sufficient trained personnel for supervisory and executive posts. A high accident rate followed a decline from the maintenance standards imposed by the British authorities until 1951, but ruthbss dismissal of culpable drivers reduced accidents by only 8 per cent., although it certainly achieved an increase in the turnover of drivers.
A proposal to set up a national driving school was too incompatible with national pride to be accepted, and even a no-accident bonus scheme had to be pressed bard before it was accepted.
The Government attempted to bring to heel taxi-owners who undercut bus fares by jamming as many people as possible into their cars and charging each person a low. price. (The bus c6mparlies paid big royalties to the Government.)
A demonstration against the Government by the owners caused the police to act with batons and hoses, but inspired the proprietors of seriall vans and pick-ups, who in turn began to undercut the taxi-owners by carrying people in their vehicles.