• That spiffing old Roads and Traffic Minister Peter Bottomley
Page 28
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
addressed the NCCSsponsored "Distribution Forum" last week, and told the assembled "opinion formers" that he intends to continue his crusade against drink driving and complacent attitudes to road safety in general.
As a vegetarian, teetotal non-smoker he told the forum that he does not want to appear prissy, but what sort of a country is Britain when we condemn the drunken scuffles of football louts in Dusseldorf on the one hand and see our managing director speeding out of the carpark in his company Jaguar on the other? Going too fast is breaking the law, just the same, said the Minister.
Indeed, he was pleased to see that Wincanton is encouraging all of its staff, from the managing director down, to take advanced and driverawareness training courses if they are supplied company cars. Lead by example, he said, and the National Freight Consortium's affable chairman Sir Peter Thompson, seated on his right, was forced to both agree and disagree, in the best traditions of political debate.
I am not keen on being compared to a football hooligan, said Sir Peter, "but I wonder how many of our chaps are advanced drivers, apart from myself?"
"Find out" was the Minister's return shot. In the stunned silence which followed Bottomley's departure, Sir Peter had the final word. "Well, I don't know about the rest of you chaps, but that has left me feeling like a criminal," he said.