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164 
Not confined to one device
Page 77
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YOUR CORRESPONDENT Mr. F. W. Knight (July 7)— who is, I note, sales director of a trailer company—is so anxious to bowl somebody or other out on the issue of jack-knifing that in his enthusiasm he is bowling wides.
Mr. Knight ought really to get his basic facts correct. In his opening paragraph he is immediately wrong. If he cares to read this Council's jack-knifing report published last September (I am sending him a copy) he will find references to all known methods of preventing jack-knifing and not merely to the Hope device. He will also find that one of our three recommendations was that modern braking systems should be fitted by law. Our proprietary
interest to use Mr. Knight's amusing expression—is in anything designed to save lives and injury.
Mr. Knight's proprietary interest is, presumably, in the trailer company employing him which is why—sad to say— he concluded what I imagine was meant to be a serious contribution to road safety, by offering your readers a sales booklet!
I am afraid he is also wrong in presuming that in my letter I was referring to a demonstration arranged by his company. I was, in fact, unaware that such a demonstration had taken place although I understand that it was filmed by Southern Television. No, the demonstration I had in mind was that put on at Hendon by York and Clayton Dewandre.
I am not qualified to discuss the engineering aspects of fitting the Hope device (and I imagine the company can well defend itself) but this seems quite irrelevant. I do know that every major trailer company—including Mr. Knight's—is able to fit it satisfactorily and that the Hope people put it on in a few hours. I am sure that the increasing number of highly qualified fleet engineers who are specifying it are not spending company money for fun and that they know what they are about just as much as Mr. Knight.
Finally, Mr. Knight's story about a reported accident, in which an attic was blamed wrongly for an accident, is a perfect illustration of the point I was making—that the industry's image could not be worse in the eyes of both public and Press.
For my part I am still putting my faith in the attic driven by a properly trained man, with a properly maintained modern braking system, and with an anti-jack-knife device in the background as a "saver".
JAMES TYE, Controller, British Safety Council, 163 /173 Praed Street, London, W2