DEAR SIR
Page 34
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
CM IS STREETS AHEAD
MAY I say how much I like the newstyle Commercial Motor? In terms of general presentation, layout and print quality, it is streets ahead of its predecessor.
The feature on F. Ball's new Seddon Atkinson 401 eight-wheelers was especially interesting as I am always impressed by the sight of these superb vehicles out on the road. Equally impressive are the F7 eight-wheelers of Shirley's of Cellarhead, who transport products for F. Ball.
The increased use of colour in CM improves the general "feel" and quality. Having been a regular reader of CM since 1952, 1 have seen numerous changes of style but these latest changes have had the greatest impact to date.
I have only one little comment — I'd like to see a return to the accurate sideand-plan view chassis drawings to accompany roadtests. These were the "norm" in the Fifties and they not only conveyed useful information to the reader hut also projected an image of serious dedication to technical accuracy on the part of the magazine.
May I round off by wishing the new CM every success.
Peter j. Davies Flirwick Bedford
YOU ARE MY FAVOURITE
MAY I congratulate you on the new state-of-the-art style of presentation adopted by my favourite magazine, a move which has undoubtedly made the best transport communication even better.
Commercial Motor's expert coverage of so many aspects of the industry provides a lively variety which must be a recipe guaranteed to please most tastes. However, your smaller cousins, the light vehicles, do get over-shadowed by their bigger relations. I appreciate that lighter vehicles are often more technically mundane, but operational considerations are certainly not. So may I venture to suggest that the views and experiences of light vehicle users are important enough to justify a little more space?
I write this letter in response to your editorial inviting comment. David Armstrong ow finer Midlands Electricity Board Kidderminster Worts
TUNNEL VISION ON THE M25
USERS of the Dartford Tunnel, and there are increasing numbers of them, must see the future with trepidation. For hauliers time is vital. Just what this will mean for many of us in the years ahead is becoming a grim certainty as opposed to pessimistic thinking.
A future of summer jams and fuming motorists is predicted by the Tunnel Authority. In three years, they say, there will be snarl-ups from Mondays to Fridays for half the year, including the hot summer months.
They emphasise that a third Thames crossing is essential, but with 10 years for planning, even now it is probably too late to avoid the problems. Granted the promise of an East London river crossing by 1991, Dartford chiefs foresee two-mile tailbacks of 600 cars in each direction, with 20-minute waits likely in the early to mid-1990s. Strange, no mention of commercial vehicles and the effects of waiting — do we rank in the car category?
The Tunnel folk do go on to say that a third Thames crossing will be urgently needed by the mid 1990s, and possibly earlier, to prevent the tunnel's capacity of 31 million cars and lorries a year being reached by 1996-97.
This stark picture emerges from a report by The Dartford Authority submitted to the House of Commons Select Committee on Transport in September. It does not take much research to arrive at the conclusive tunnel vision that six lanes of motorway (when the M25 is complete) funnelling into four tunnel lanes means huge bottle-necks.
Since a sizeable sum of money for the M25 motorway has been provided from EEC funds, there will presumably be pressure from that quarter for ample facilities from and to the Channel ports. Latest indications point to the fact that the Ministry is considering facts and figures provided by several sources, not least the 1)artford Tunnel management. Indeed, a spokesman confirmed the department was checking the figures provided by the Tunnel general manager to take account of new traffic generated by easy travelling (my italics) along new sections of the M25. However, he said it was unlikely ministers would make a decision before completion of the M25 next year.
Does anybody know how to ensure the authorities get-on-with-it?
Further, are there any suggestions for swift, reasonably assured ways for heavy vehicles to pass over or under the Thames within the next few years?. The Tunnel people are doing their best, but this is a matter for central government if this country is to compete in Europe in the years ahead.
Nigel Breeze Southend-on-Sea
CALLING ALL BIG WHEELERS
THE ASSETS of the former association known as The Big Wheelers Association, which disbanded in May 1983, and which were put in trust, are to be auctioned on Friday June 21, at Llantrisant Rugby Club, St David's Place, Llantrisant, Mid-Glamorgan, at 8.30pm. The proceeds of the auction will then be passed on to the Handicapped Children's Pilgrimage Trust, as was agreed when the association finished.
Articles to be auctioned include CB radios, novelty gifts and stationery.
Please note, however, that the BWA (UK), which was formed in May 1983, continues to function, is alive and kicking, and has every intention of staying that way. We hold our meetings at the above address on the first Friday of every month, starting at 8pm, and any queries can be sent to me at that address.
Nicky Anthony (Mrs) Secretary BWA (UK) Llantrisant South Wales.