BIRD'S EYE VIEW
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BY THE HAWK
• If the Hawk wore a hat, he'd take it off to the 80 lads from Tankfreight's Manchester area depots who dragged a giant road tanker eight miles to raise £20,000 to buy a minibus for physically-handicapped children.
The Tankfreight boys stepped into the breach when they heard the Pictor School in Sale needed to replace its ailing 10-year-old bus. A specially-adapted Ford 12-seater with tail-lift and wheelchair harnesses is now on order.
• In the interests of the great British beer-drinking public, the Hawk begs drivers to enquire just what are they cartying when they pick up a load for Allied Breweries?
Clever old Allied has come up with a method for concentrating freshly-brewed beer to four times its normal strength, freezing it and transporting it to your local, where it will be diluted with carbonated water.
• Drivers with their finger on the pulse have probably already enrolled on a course in herpetology. No, nothing to do with nasty diseases — it's the study of amphibians and reptiles and might come in handy when in the south of France, where a tunnel for tortoises is being built.
Up to 2,000 rare Hermann's tortoises are expected to use the £15,000 tunnel near Gonfaron to travel to their usual habitat either side of the motorway, which links Toulon with the Autoroute de Soleil.
Closer to home, an English tortoise was returned to its owner after being picked up in the slow lane of the M6 — but not for speeding.
• There's been a lot of joking in Commercial Motor about Ladas over the past few months, but Tony Lewis is one person who doesn't find it much of a laugh.
Three months after Lewis bought his F-reg Samara 1.5L saloon it failed its MoT. The stop lights and side-lights were not working, the brake pedal travel was excessive and the handbrake was too stiff.
Lewis has demanded his money back and vowed never to buy a Lada again. Perhaps a Skoda next time. . .
• The 214 million in damage to buses each year is as likely to be caused by youths from affluent suburbs as by those from deprived inner-city areas, according to a survey by the Bus and Coach Council.
Boys aged 14 are the biggest offenders, but by the age of 15 most have grown out of it, the report says.
Could this be because they're looking for a career in transport? • A sheepish Gloucestershii policeman limped in to the Birds Eye Walls factory at Barnwood to return a rare, n cently restored vintage ice cream van which the boys in blue had borrowed for a day. Unfortunately they wrote off the prized van on its way home, when the police Landrover and trailer carrying it jacknifed and overturned.
Surveying the wreckage, ol which little was distinguishabl except for the chassis, Birds Eye factory manager John Hazelwood described his reac tion as one of "dismay". He found it puzzling that "for yea the ice cream van plied its trade in Acton, west London, without serious mishap, and now this happens on a short journey from a police show".
The vehicle, one of only tIA in existence, had been part 01 the 150th anniversary celebra tions of the founding of the Gloucestershire police, an event which will be remembered by all concerned as a smashing day.
El Not to be outdone, the Yorkshire police recently chased a coachload of pension ers through the streets of York, flashing lights and all, a part of a zealous drive to ban lager louts from the city on race days. Since racegoers went on the rampage in 1985, coach parties have been barre from the city centre when the races are on.
Driver John Bates tried to slip past the police to pick up 14 passengers, but found the law hot on his heels. He had I return his daytrippers to Derl minus the 14, who were safel escorted by the police to the rail station and thence home. Still, it's not every day you ge a real live car chase thrown ir with the price of a trip to Yor
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