HAULIERS CAN HANDLE TRAINING NI Regarding you editorial comment headed
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"Stop the Rot" (CM 8-14 December). The rot we should stop is talking about the RTITB as if it did any good for hauliers.
Your suggestion that we should all protest at its demise, but none of us would be prepared to voluntarily pay for it, is insulting our intelligence.
If we could be allowed to spend our own funds on the training we need without RTITB interference than there would be more skilled workers and less exotic conferences and seminars in far-away places.
Hauliers are not so stupid as you believe and would like to decide how they spend their own money.
The RTITH must go. PE Bartrum, Managing director, Bartrum's Road Services, Langton Green, Suffolk.
CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTOR • I read with interest FM Pomfret's letter in your issue headed "Bedford's Demise" (CM 17-23 November).
I am an ex-Bedford main dealer in the South West and am now appointed as a main Leyland Daf and Freight Rover dealer.
Despite this change of franchise I still maintain the same level of service back-up to Bedford customers in this part of the country and will continue to do so while I still enjoy the same level of back-up from General Motors. I carry a comprehensive stock of Bedford parts and I am still on direct supply from General Motors.
I cannot agree that Service Information Technical Back-up has ceased over-night because from our point of view (ie that of a dealer) the total back-up in all respects from General Motors has not changed.
I can only suggest that Pornfret's problem is that he does not have a local dealer who shows the same conscientiousness as we do and the determination to support the Bedford customers into the future.
You will appreciate that I have no flag to fly for General Motors since I'm now committed to Leyland Daf and Freight Rover, but I felt that I could not let the letter pass without comment.
Anthony C Mace, Managing director, Tamar Leyland Daf, Plymouth, Devon.
ALARM BELLS
• Living in the relative tranquility of Plymouth, I am not subjected to night-time lorry bans and the like — yet.
I found the article on the London lorry ban interesting (CM 17-23 November).
What surprised me most was Peter Broadbent's comment rewarding being woken up at 1.30am by a fire engine's air brakes — not its warning siren, assuming the vehicle was going to, and not returning from, the scene of a fire.
Could it be that warning sirens also have to be fitted with "hush kits" in the capital? R Capper, Eastover, Devon.