bird's eye
Page 35
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view by the Hawk
• Perfidious Albion
The cat has certainly been put among the Continental pigeons by the Road Traffic (Foreign Vehicles) Act 1972. I understand that after the Spanish driver was fined £140 at Lewes last month, six Spanish drivers who arrived well aware that their vehicles were overweight refused to leave the dock area until matters had been put right. Surprisingly, they had not even been test weighed, but volunteered the information.
An even stickier incident happened at Southampton not long ago. A French tanker loaded with liquid lard was found to be overweight and the driver tried to put things right by discharging his load into the gutter. This solidified and blocked the drains, much to the disgust of the Port Authority.
A fresh tanker, partially loaded, had to be brought from France to take the remainder of the surplus weight — but before this could be transferred the second vehicle was also found to be overweight, on one axle! The driver of this vehicle tried to put things right by switching part of the load from one tank compartment to another but while this was in progress, along came the public health authority and condemned his hosepipe.
No doubt order prevailed in the end.
• The last straw
VAT looks like being the final blow for some operators whose traffic is already being abstracted by the light brigade. J. B. Andrew, representing the British Association of Removers at the RHA Northern dinner, told me that many removers in his area are still under heavy pressure from newcomers with small vans — a lot of whom may be expected to avoid registration for VAT, thus adding a further 10 per cent advantage to their already low overheads.
It seems that the rates war has not yet reached its lowest level.
II Coachmen's holiday
PVOA secretary Bill Webb tells me that the 50 members who went on a five-day coach tour to Germany had a fine time. They travelled in Britain's only SETRA coach (owned by Kirby's Coaches of Rayleigh) to see SETRA vehicles made in Ulm by Kassbahrer — who really rolled out the red carpet. I gather that although the construction of the integral coach impressed the British group, they were really staggered by the scene in the repair shop, where it seemed no vehicle was too far gone ;o repair.
I'm sure they could all claim very
professional reasons for visiting a wine cellar in Boppard and then taking a scenic tour through Koblenz and the Rhine Valley but I'll bet it didn't seem like hard work.
• Busman 007
London Transport driving instructor Maurice Patchett has a nice mission this month: to ram his bus across a crocodileinfested island, throw it into a 180-degree skid in the middle of a sugar cane plantation and then force the 14ft 6in. double-decker under a 12ft bridge.
He's the lucky man chosen to double for Roger Moore in a stunt driving sequence in the latest James Bond film Live and Let Die, and for Maurice it means a four-week stint in Jamaica.
He is used to having the whole Chiswick skid patch available for his deliberate skids and spins but one part of the action requires him to spin the bus on its axis within the width of a normal road and return the way he came. He says he's been practising in slack periods — but I reckon he will need his 12 years' experience to get it right first time.
• Bower base
The directions sound ominous. Eastwards at Gants Hill, then left of the Plough Inn at Gallows Corner; to the village green at Havering-atte-Bower and so to the Bower House — not on any account to be confused with Bower Hall. And almost everybody who was anybody slept at Bower House, or its predecessor, from Queen Liz I onwards.
But the people who sleep there now are the resident truck sales and marketing men — for this is where Ford Motor Co trains people to sell, manage, administer and advise in the vehicle field — in fact, it's the Ford Marketing Institute, in rural Essex.
I was impressed by the course for truck consultants — as they are called when I visited the place. It takes at least 18 months of study and experience to get the coveted "consultant" grade — to which the company has trained 90 men in recent years; but 180 "truck specialists" have been turned out as well.
And it isn't just classroom work, either. The salesmen learning how to match a truck spec to a job have to do some realistic exercises with actual vehicles.
The Hawk's thought for the week: If you drive a man into a corner, expect him to attack you.