• Amid his multifarious activities, your avian correspondent tries to
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keep abreast of the mass media's coverage of the road transport industry.
BBC's Top Gear programme included a number of CV items last week, including news of a device to stop trucks rolling backwards during hill-starts, and a report on Toleman's state-of-the-art 12-car transporter which, of course, has been already been fully described in these pages (CM 2531 January).
But a single word dropped in by Top Gear's road tester ruffled my feathers. He mentioned the "regrettable" decision to transport more cars by
road instead of rail.
Regrettable to whom? The manufacturers, who presumably find road hauliers more efficient than dear old British Rail? The high-street dealers who have always received their vehicles by road any way?
Or only to the motley assortment of dungaree-clad Green activists whose influence seems out of all proportion to their expertise?
The time is coming when, having accepted that road hauliers have a duty to pay reasonable heed to environmental issues, we really will have to stop apologising for being part of the industry that keeps this country moving.