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154 
BIRD'S EYE VIEW
Page 36
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BY THE HAWK
• Those awfully clever people at the Department of Transport have developed a whizzo gadget which automatically monitors the surface of Britain's roads at up to 801un/h.
The Laser Trouble-Shooter looks like a high-jump landing cushion, costs £200,000, and is towed behind a van packed with computers. Lasers beneath the unit trace the shape of the road surface and record the details on computer. Any early signs of wear are identified so the problem can be dealt with before the defect becomes serious.
To identify the location of each defect, the Department has begun to install 4,000 specially-coded markers alongside the country's motorways and trunk roads. The codes are like enlarged versions of the bar codes used in supermarkets. A laser in the van reads the bar codes and uses that to accurately determine where each fault arises.
The DTp claims Britain is a • BP Fuel Card Services is urging truck drivers to buy diesel and support a new charity for young people — the Weston Spirit, founded by Simon Weston, the Welsh Guardsman badly burned in the Falklands War. Around 14,000 HGV drivers have been asked to donate their BT Lifestyle vouchers, which will be used by the charity to buy equip world leader in this technology. In this case, with Britain's roads in such a parlous state, could it be that necessity is the mother of invention?
0 An underground system to detect and weigh moving lorries is being developed by more boffins at the Transport and Road Research Laboratory and Liverpool University, which has just been awarded a £12,000 six-month contract for the project.
A prototype using a modified burglar detector has been in use on the M4 at Theale since May and has so far counted more than six million vehicles.
The system uses optic fibres buried in the road; a passing vehicle deforms the road surface slightly, so an optical fibre embedded in the road will also be deformed. The resulting drop in light indicates the presence of the vehicle.
If the change in intensity is measured it can also give an indication of the vehicle's weight. Impressive stuff!
ment such as rafts and mountain bikes. Pictured with Weston is Dick Constable, manager of BP Oil's Fuel Card Services, and Cathy Conroy of BP Oil.
• The days of splattering hedgehogs on the road could soon be over The Warwickshire Nature Conservation Trust has noticed some changes in their behaviour — instead of rolling into a ball when in danger they have begun to run away.
Whether this is an evolutionary process, or the results of some instruction from the Green Cross man, the Trust is keen to find out. "We would like to hear of any reports of this happening. . . but we would need a lot of them to confirm that it is a general trend," says Peter Markey, conservation assistant.
Markey tells us that hedgehogs can run at up to six miles an hour, slightly faster than we can walk. Sound more like roadhogs to me.
• The 1989 BBC Children in Need campaign stands to gain from a Leyland Daf dealer promotion at all 150 of the manufacturer's van outlets around the UK. Leyland Daf will pay £1 to the charity for every test drive taken in a dealer demonstrator van or minibus between now and 31 December.
• Ian Rycroft, managing director of Poole-based EC Transport, spent more money than he expected at last month's Frankfurt Motor Show where he ordered a Volvo F16 and a brand new Ferrari.
• Keep eating those carrots: Top-UK Insurance is offering a 5% motor insurance premium discount to all drivers who've had their night vision checked and, if necessary, corrected. • For the more active lorry driver how about this nifty combination? An ERF El0 sporting a curious little number on the back which can be used for rallying, flying, skiing and white water rafting.
The 10-litre Cumminspowered ERF is not itself involved in any sporting activity, but a sliding fifth wheel coupling links the EN to a 12.1m step-frame trailer, containing a computerised simulator, programmed to provide sporting thrills.
Owners are Devon-based company Gee Force. Contract hire and maintenance was organised by Frank Tucker Commercials of Exeter. Gee whizz!
• The London Boroughs Transport Committee, renowned for its campaign against noisy trucks, has shown a change in tactics with the following comment in its recent consultation documents: "Work is also required to rectify fundamental faults in the essential double-glazing and sound-proofing system, because of the proximity to the main railway lines", to its new Lorry Control Unit's premises.
Rubber tracks, maybe?