Bird's EyE
Page 57
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View BY THE HAWh
Comfort, But . . .
E chairman or the RHA, P. H. R. Turner, touched obliquely onthe question of rates in his banquet address to members and guests at Torquay last week. He referred to an occasion when he attended a meeting at Roadway House, RHA's London headquarters. During the course of the day he said, "I travelled nine miles by taxi at a cost of £2." This equals about 4s. 6d. per mile. The nearest approach I can find to these rates commercially are for a 16-ton eight-wheeler or a 16-ton artic. A 14-seater bus is also available at approximately the same price. No doubt Phil Turner preferred the comfort of a taxi but would the PIB please note.
Incentive Bonus?
withdrew its objection and thereby paved the way for a successful IS week at a licensing court the only objector, British Railways, application for a road haulier. So grateful was the haulier that he invited the objector's representatives to join him for a magnum of champagne at a local place of refreshment. The thought occurs: might not British Railways be better served by dropping all objections and buying all applicants a weeldy ration of bubbly? The cost I am sure would be less than the £200,000 per annum which it is estimated BR is spending on these objections.
DL;stman De Luxe
HE Institute of Advanced Motorists stated this week that Ted Weaver, a dustcart driver with Neston District Council had passed his Institute of Advanced Motorists tests driving a Leyland refuse freighter. While Ted is not the first commercial vehicle driver to pass the test he holds the distinction of being the first refuse driver to pass the test and now his vehicle displays the blue and silver badge of the Institute. Incidentally the Institute tell me that e blue badge is designed exclusively for commercial vehicles.
IniWaI Confusion
VUI-IEN Mrs. Castle first told the world about her plans to V V integrate nationalized inland freight we were regaled with the term National Freight Authority (soon reduced to NFA). Not long after came National Freight Corporation, but this didn't last long as a title. Now we have seen in the pa; weeks a rush of NFO to the headlines. This is the Na Freight Organization—referred to without capitals (appropri in the White Paper as the national freight organization.
So I rang the man at the Ministry this week and he said consistent—stick to NFA".
Did somebody mutter SNAFU?
Antisocial Future?
AS a supporter of the one-man-bus/standee/higher pri tivity proposals I perhaps ought not to retail the folk opinion. It might weaken the case. Still, it's a point of view looked at.
A knowledgeable friend of mine had listened patient views in favour of one-man buses; then he said, very qt. "It'll be the nail in the coffin of public transport in Britain".
Why? Well, he said, look what had happened in Am Many operators there had gone in for one-man operatio. economic reasons some years ago and the drivers, hit insulated from the madding crowd, had been jostled and al with and fumed at and frustrated in between driving and out tickets and operating change machines and ousting dr Result: many drivers had retaliated in kind. Second r public transport got a bad name in many quarters. Third r passenger traffic fell even faster.
It could happen here, he says, painting word pictures e temper of a long, impatient queue on a wet winter nig Oxford Street.