BIRD'S EYE VIEW
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BY THE HAWK
• Eddie Camp had his dream come true when Overall Transport granted him a seat on a six-day, long distance haul through five countries.
Camp, 68, a magistrate from Southend became hungry for adventure after a conversation with a lorry driver who told him about life on the road.
Essex county councillor Richard Boyd who uses the freight forwarding company to deliver aircraft spares to Europe, asked if Overall could fix it up for Camp.
Overall was delighted to help. "Throughout Mr Camp's journey, staff went out of their way to make special arrangements by showing him around Aachen and Bremen and inviting him to social occasions including a party at one of their homes" says Boyd.
• When the wind blows you don't get your papers delivered . . . well, not unless they're being distributed by Newsflow. A day after the hurricane conditions of Thursday last week, Robert Maxwell sent Merit Direct (a market research company) out on the devastated roads of the south east of England. . . its mission — to seek out 550 newspaper wholesalers and find out how their supplies had been affected. 33% said Newsflow outshone their TNT competitor, Newsfast; while 16% preferred Newsfast. A shaken and shell-shocked 3% muttered something about not getting any deliveries at all.
If you didn't get your copy of Commercial Motor don't moan at me. The moment Michael Fish says: "I can assure you it's going to be a pleasantly warm and calm night", we ensure that Commercial Motor issues are rushed out on the streets within half an hour. You can never be too sure these days.
• When's a traffic policeman not a traffic policeman? Answer: when he's nicked nicking drivers on the roads of North Devon.
A bogus policeman driving a white Sierra with a blue beacon is giving out £25 on-the-spot fines to confused drivers.
He stopped a woman and asked her if she had been drinking. He also told her to produce her driving licence. When she asked him for identitiy, he told her to accompany him to the station — she turned up, he did not.
Devon and Cornwall Police introduced their fixed penalty system for lesser offences a year ago. They make it clear that no money should be paid to officers.
• Scalia has sold 499,999 trucks so far. The 500,000th was given away free to UNICEF, the United Nation's children's fund. The truck, a 192 with tipper body, will be used in a UNICEF project in the Republic of Guinea in Africa.
With a street value of at least £45,000 the truck's function will be to carry bulk food stuffs such as grain to hard-hit drought areas.
• Peter Bottomley, minister for roads and traffic, criticised operators for failing to maintain their vehicles properly when he opened Grau Girling's new anti-lock factory at Redditch and later visited the company's test track and R and D centre at Fenn End.
"The annual report of the department's vehicle inspectorate, which is about to be published, shows that many vehicles are still not maintained as they might be" he said. "Antilock devices will help the department's aim to reduce road casualties by one third by the year 2000."
On the subject of vehicle inspectorates have you spotted Commercial Motor's favourite independent tipper operatorcum-vehicle examiner, Neil Gardner?
• Quota-throttled Mitsubishi Motors may have found a way round the almost water-tight import restrictions on the number of vehicles it can import to this country each year.
The answer is an amphibious off-road Shogun. There are two ways in which this might confuse the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders, and its Japanese equivalent, the Japanese Automobile Manufacturers Association. First, the method of controlling the vehicles imported is by shipload into the UK, but if the vehicles steamed from Japan on their own, then it might be difficult to count them. After all, they could make a landfall anywhere in the country — one can imagine coastguards looking out for fleets of amphibious Shoguns creeping into deserted Cornish coves under the cover of darkness.
The other confusing aspect of the vehicle is defining whether it is a ship, or a motor vehicle. Beer and sandwiches could be bought in to Forbes House, HQ of the SMMT, as photographs are studied, and opinions expressed long into the night. Lloyds of London could be called in to sit in judgement on this strange beastie.
"El Lago Shogun" unfortunately failed to complete its maiden voyage down the swollen head waters of the Thames last week, after colliding with a submerged tree. It was unceremoniously hauled to the Earls Court Motorfair, where it was ignomaniously cavorted upon by the lovely Jackie.
In fact the company is surprisingly serious about the amphibious vehicle that has been built by the relatively unexcitable people from Mitsubishi Motors in Japan. The body is basically a wheeled boat that looks like a Shogun and is powered and steered with twin water jets that are powered from a standard Shogun's driveline.
The company is planning greater things for its water car, and we may see further developments next year. For the moment, however, it is simply pouring Shoguns on to troubled waters.