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BIRD'S EYE VIEW
Page 24
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BY THE HAWK
• Vehicle factory workers in Russia will soon see breath testers installed in their workplaces by the Soviet Ministry of the Automotive Industry to root out any traces of alcohol on the production line. The breath-testing machine, built in Britain, can register the smallest trace of alcohol and any employee found drinking will be sent home without pay.
• Do you snore? Are you overweight? Do you drive long distances? If so, you could be up to seven times more likely to crash your vehicle than the average motorist.
The latest issue of the British Medical Journal says many long-distance lorry drivers suffer from an illness called Apnoea. The disease causes drivers to snore loudly which interrupts their sleep up to 300 times a night making them drowsy during the day.
However, researching the illness has been a problem, says the journal, because too many people are frightened of losing their driving licences.
• In a Britain clogged with motorised transport the bicycle is rightly pedalled as a healthy alternative. In China, the twowheeled friend has become a positive menace, responsible for more than 70% of road accidents. Seven million people in the capital Beijing use bicycles, swamping the few car and truck drivers. To combat the problem the authorities have decreed that drivers will no longer be automatically liable for accidents involving bicycles and those cyclists violating traffic regulations will have to pay a bumped-up fine.
• If this Federal Express Mercedes-Benz panel van looks a lee front heavy, it's due to the over-sized forms of Philadelphia Eagles defensive tackle Jerome Brown (99) and quarterback king of the Cleveland Browns, Bernie Kosar.
Federal Express is the official carrier for this year's • Would you drive a commercial vehicle with the windscreen blanked off and the wing mirrors turned so that they reflect forward? If the answer is no, then why drive backwards in exactly the same situation?
This was the question asked at the launch of the National Reverse in Safety Campaign launched last Wednesday at the House of Commons.
Campaigner and manufacturer of reversing aids, Christopher Hanson-Abbott, claims it costs only £35 for a commercial vehicle to be fitted with reversing bleepers — a small price to pay to save 35,000 reported reversing accidents each year.
Roads and Traffic minister Peter Bottomley is, however, yet to be convinced by the NRSC claim: he wants more statistics on off-road incidents before shelling out 250,000 on a Transport and Road Research Laboratory report.
America Bowl, to be held at Wembley on 6 August. A fleet of vans will be needed to transport the huge squads of beefcake when they arrive in lir or England on 31 July.
It's rumoured that the vehicles have been fitted with heavy-duty suspensions so they can take the strain. • Earlier this month one of the Hawk's colleagues undertook a six-hour journey to Blackpool to see the Coach Rally and photograph the winner of the Coach Driver of the Year Award.
Sure enough, our intrepid reporter arrived in Blackpool, photographed all the exhibits and awaited the prize-giving ceremony. As with many of these occasions, there are hundreds of trophies, and many competitors are presented with several awards.
This was true of Terry Shaw, from Shaw's or Barnsley. When he went to collect his prizes from the Lord Mayor of Blackpool, he was given a whole annful of awards: Unfortunately, the presentation of the trophies, the posing for pictures, and Shaw's return to his coach were over long before the chap on the public address system got round to announcing that Shaw was also this year's Coach Driver of the Year.
Having waited patiently through the presentation of other awards to take a photo of the overall driver of the year, Our man was left to pursue Terry, camera in hand. As you can see Terry and his daughter sportingly took time to pose for CM when he caught up with them.
• There's no pleasing some people. East Yorkshire Council's chief-executive John Gib son has been complaining that Humberside's improved road network is making it easier for burglars to get away.
• Staff at Great Yeklhambased Thompson Haulage were aghast recently when the firm's cats, Ginger and Fluffy (both 10 months old), went missing.
They had boarded one of the company's vehicles, driven by Ian Flemming, while he was loading furniture and carpets in the back.
Flemming discovered Fluffy at the final destination on his run to Bristol. He booked the cat into a local cattery for four days until his return trip.
Strangely enough Ginger was already at the very same cattery. He had grown tired of lorry travel and escaped from the truck at the first stop, a Bristol carpet shop where he was given a saucer of milk.
The shop owner promptly identified the cat, and took it to the cattery until Thompsons could collect. A spokesman for the company says they have no plans to go into livestock haulage.
• Sometimes condemned for their lack of sensitivity, EC Eurocrats have redeemed themselves by blasting the French government over the way their Customs officers treated a party of British war veterans at the frontier.
The Dunkirk and D-Day veterans were fined and had to leave their coach because its weigh bill was out of date. The driver was put under arrest while the old soldiers raised 2180 in francs at a local bank to pay the fine.
"The customs knew perfectly well they were dealing with a group of veterans who helped to liberate France, and their actions were bound to cause offence," said British Euro MP Richard Cottrell in a complaint to the EC.
Now the Brussels Commissioners have written to Paris demanding that the "excessive" fine is repaid.
"This action was unwarranted by the circumstances and disproportionate to any technical breach of rules involved," they said in a reply to Cottrell's complaint last week.