Poor Parking Facilities
Page 45
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THE overnight parking facilities for long-distance drivers are very poor in some towns. In Brighton recently had to leave my vehicle on a piece of open ground, unattended, and in a poorly-lit part of the town about halfa-mile from where I stayed the night.
The site was recommended to me by a policeman and a motoring organization scout as "the place where all the lorries were left at night." If a part of my load had been stolen I might have had to face some very searching questions as to why I had parked in such a place.
There is also the question of damage caused by children playing on parked vehicles, such as scratched paintwork and the plastic parts of tail lamps being wrenched out.
The answer to this problem as seen by a driver weary of tramping unfamiliar streets from park to digs, is municipal parks and hostels adjacent to each other. One idea that occurs to me is the acquisition of some of the super pubs. They already have the necessary facilities, and no one need go short of a pint.
Wolverhampton. C. W. BOUCHER.
Three Abreast On 1141
rtitAv I raise a question of urgent public importance? It ivi concerns the driving of lorries along. Ml.
• Lorry B, driving along MI in the left-hand (slow) lane at 54 m.p.h., comes up behind Lorry A, driving at 53 m.p.h. (the speeds are fictitious, taken only for arithmetical example). Lorry B, overtaking Lorry A, pulls out into the middle lane with the consequence (this is my point) that, for the time and the distance occupied by the one lorry in overtaking the other, MI is temporarily reduced to a single lane. What these times and distances may be can, I have no doubt, be worked out readily enough by traffic engineers. Behind Lorry B comes Lorry C. Driving faster, at,55 m.p.h., it overtakes both lorries ahead and in doing so pulls out into the third, right-hand, fast lane. By -these three lorries abreast Ml is blocked completely.
A vehicle in which I was a passenger came up behind three such lorries last week. The driver had no choice but to brake—violently. Such a deceleration might have caused a skid, shooting us across the median strip to cannon into traffic on the other carriageway. Our vehicle fortunately was a heavy job, and though it was raining the tyres gripped securely. Our speed was brought down in time, praise be, to tuck in behind the lorry in the outer lane. No harm was done: we—my fellow passengers, the driver and myself —are neither in hospital nor in our graves; but had there been anything lighter in that outer, right-hand lane, then there would have been a real smash, and it might have been a bad one.
" Motorways and motor-roads are safer no doubt at high speeds than ordinary roads at low. We have already got more than one; there are others being built. We shall never, surely, be able to enjoy the full advantage of these new motor-roads unless we stick to our lanes. Isn't it about time then that we began to learn?
University of PROFESSOR GILRER1 WALKER. Bi rrningharn.
Armoured Vehicle Easy Prey ?
AS a road transport consultant since 1933, the news of the marketing of an armoured vehicle for the conveyance of cash is intereiting, especially as, indirectly, I was responsible for the licensing of bullion transport, the success of which can be attributed to its lack of publicity.
I should like to discuss with the sponsors of this innovation the following snags and their possible remedies:— (i) vehicle being "hi-jacked "; (ii) driver and guard taken for a ride in their self-imposed security; (iii) cash container broached at leisure.
There is another point, with which the police will agree. An essence of security is the factor of delay, and a heavily armoured vehicle stands out like a sore thumb. Moreover, its existence and employment cannot be concealed.
The whole operation of interception can be completed swiftly, without undue pain and at considerable profit to the bandits.
Ware, Herts. E. H. B. PALMER.