BIRD'S EYE VIEW
Page 26
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BY THE HAWK
Here is the solution to Prize Crossword 8. The first correct answers out of the hat will win a CM polo shirt.
• It seems that a copy of Commercial Motor is becoming a stock item in every chest of buried treasure.
I am referring to another incidence of my deathless prose being preserved for all time — well, 1000 years actually — in a time capsule which is to remain unopened in Caithness Town Hall until the year 2989. The burghers of Wick hit on this idea as part of the town's 400-year celebrations. It's enough to give a bird a big head.
• Two of the three full-time members of the London Regional Transport Board travel to work by public transport, and the third uses London Transport's services "whenever appropriate". One member, who has a PSV licence, goes even further and regularly drives buses.
These colourful snippets of information were revealed in the House of Lords recently when Lord Boyd-Carpenter, asked the Government to make it a condition of appointment to the LRT board that on one working day of each week the director concerned should travel exclusively by public transport.
"Can you confirm that these distinguished gentlemen on the board use public transport during the rush hour, when they would have the opportunity of sharing the miseries of many fellow countrymen?" he asked.
"The gentleman referred to, who is a bus driver, is, after all in a very privileged position — he at least has a reserved seat," said the noble member. Hear hear. • One newly-born little piggie was discovered by a motorist on a roadside verge near Salisbury the other week. Staff at the Child Beale Trust wildlife park at Theale, Berkshire, believe she was born in the back of a lorry which was transporting her mother. This is one little piggie that definitely is not going to market.
• Those of you out there who crack Lada car jokes could soon have the smile wiped of your faces: the Wiltshire police are evaluating them as potential patrol vehicles.
A four-wheel drive Lada Cossack is currently being tested and so far it's doing well. "It's rugged and we can't find a British or Japanese vehicle at the same price," says one of the cops.
No Lada jokes from me, but I would like to be there when the super has to explain to the lads how the luxurious Ladas will make better patrol vehicles than those nasty old Range Rovers.
• P&O Ferrymasters successfully moved 82 brand new Rovers to the South of France in a convoy of 28 trailers for a presentation to Rover dealers.
Rover said afterwards: "Great care and expertise is needed to move valuable cars for such an event. It reflects great credit on P&O Ferrymasters. . . that the deliveries were made to schedule through appalling weather."
What concerns the Hawk is that P&O identifies the Rovers as new Metros, when it is clear from the photograph that the company was moving the well-received 200 Series cars, launched last October.
I can only conclude that the presentation may have left the Rover dealers a little confused. • Those idiots who jump red traffic lights could soon get their come-uppance.
Following successful trials in Notts and London, the Government wants to fit spy cameras which will photograph the number plate of anyone failing to stop at a red light. The Hawk advises Transport Minister Atkins to get on the blower to • Terranova of Bracknell was on the right track when it removed the 125-year-old railway bridge at London's Ludgate Circus. The company used a specially designed STGO Cat II articulated low loader to carry his Canadian counterpart who, I hear, has had to deal with rednecks who got fed up with having their picture taken and regularly gave the hi-tech spy cameras a blast from their twelve-bores.
Does the minister realise how trigger-happy they can be in the likes of Walton on the Naze?
ballast weights and other components to rig the crane. The ERF 6x4 tractor unit, one of two such units in the fleet, is coupled to a Trailermaster-built four axle semi-trailer, rated for a 60-tonne payload.