letters
Page 26
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
We welcome letters for publication on transport topics. Address them to Commercial Motor. Dorset House, Stamford Street, London SE1.
Abolish bus stops!
One tends, in spite of all the evidence to the contrary, to take some of our self-styled experts seriously. However, having read some of the nonsense currently trotted out by Mr John Hibbs about rural buses there is a need at least to draw attention to one or two of the more wild assertions that he makes.
Perhaps it can be explained how his phrase (CM December 17 1971) "— with the heavy, slow and expensive coffins that grumble along our main roads . . ." fits as a description of our rural services. Why coffins, when the passenger industry has a record unequalled by any other road user for safety? Why expensive. when it is still the cheapest form of transport other than bikes or feet per passenger journey?
To suggest that bus transport is slow is simply to argue that buses should not stop to pick up or set down passengers. Mr Hibbs really makes the point when he refers to the potential of express coach services. If you go twice as fast you can arrive in half the time.
Where, I wonder, do we get this panacea for all bus operators' problems, this light, fast vehicle that is not too large or expensive? Is it the minibus with mini-drivers at miniwages catering for mini-passengers? Come off it Mr Hibbs, if you are a busman at heart perhaps it is just as well you are no longer in the industry.
LARRY SMITH National Secretary, Passenger Services Group, Transport and General Workers' Union.
Lorry design
I was most interested in Janus's article "Foggy thinking" (CM December 10) with its conce,rn about lane discipline, warning and other problems of driving in adverse weather conditions.
Surely one point has been missed? Lorry design is little advanced on'the car in 1929 so multiple pile ups will continue to happen where lorries are involved with private cars until they are given modern braking and handling. This particularly applies to articulated vehicles. With perfect conditions of load and road the law only requires an articulated lorry to stop at about two-thirds the capability of any modern car. Under adverse conditions and when the trailer is running empty or part laden it is difficult for articulated vehicles to achieve 0.33 g braking where many cars are still capable of braking near to 1.0 g. Jack-knifing and slides are caused by uneven braking capability and are not an automatic effect of using articulated vehicles.
I do not believe that a ban on some motorists from a lane can cure the problem. In any case, driving in the slow lane should theoretically give two alternative lanes of escape if the slow lane becomes blocked.
A preliminary cure would be the immediate compulsory fitting of an anti-lock braking system, such as Dunlop's Maxaret. The ultimate solution must come from a reconsideration of tractor-trailer geometry. It is well within the 'scope of today's motor technology to give brakes and handling equal to the second half of the 20th century. The lorry driver is not to blame, neither is the ordinary car driver. Unless they have gifts beyond the senses of most they cannot compute changing situations of road, adhesion and load — especially in adverse conditions. Neither are manufacturers at fault for this is a socio-economic problem out of their hands.
Surely the time has come for legislation, ANTHONY SMALLHORN, Industrial designer, Hitchin, Herts.
Overheating I am interested in the letter -Scanias v. UK vehicles(CM December 24, 1971).
The real reason for overheating is engines having been designed without enough clearance between the cylinder sleeves: also that they have been laid over sideways. I know that this is so, and that a three-seated cab can be made — but the vast number of vehicles on the road carry only the driver.
Exhaust-pipe trouble is caused by lack of stiffness between the pipe and the silencer, which can be rectified by straps for the box to the pipe.
Many fitters are capable of rectifying the troubles on. vehicles but are not allowed to do so as this might cause trouble with the makers through the warranty claims.
D. V, BROWN, Tottenham, London.
Ban fields dispute
My attention has been drawn to the report in Commercial Motor of December 17, page 22, headed "Banfield drivers defy union, return to work".
The headline and the article are a distortion of the true facts. Twenty-six drivers are regularly employed by C. W. Banfield Ltd, 24 of whom were on strike. It is true that the history of the dispute goes back four months when I first made an approach to the company to meet Mr Banfield with a view to discussing wages and conditions. It is not true that less than half of the drivers were at that time members of our organization. This we can obviously prove. We have indeed had the bulk of the drivers as members since August 1971.
With regard to your third paragraph, the 24 drivers who were on strike were asking that the employers should meet the union to talk about increased pay and two weeks' holiday as against the one week that had been paid up to this moment in time. Mr Banfield had not agreed or announced that he was going to pay two weeks' holiday until he made the statement in the Press during the strike.
At no time did the drivers defy their union and the settlement was reached, with my agreement, among the drivers at a meeting held outside the premises. We still hold the majority of drivers as members of our union.
The terms agreed by the employer were brought before our members at a meeting and under my advice they accepted the terms as the basis for a return to work.
J. A. STEVENS, Coach Officer, London and Home Counties Region, Transport and General Workers' Union.