Bird's Eye View
Page 70
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Thank Offering
By The Hawk AS a thank offering, the Thames Estuary Automobile Club arc helping to run the Southend eliminating round of the Lorry Driver of the Year Competition on June 30. "We arc very pleased indeed to have the privilege of doing this small service for the drivers of the 'heavies,' whose almost unfailing help and courtesy on the road have been greatly appreciated for a long time," Mr. R. P. Vandcrpump, honorary Press secretary of the club, tells me. If this pleasant sentiment were shown in other areas, I am sure there would be much less difficuty in creating new eliminating centres.
Fun. With Figures
JANNER made himself rather unpopular with Mr. in Harold Watkinson, Minister of Transport, in the House of Commons by suggesting that 37 out of 102 road schemes listed last year for commencement by a specific date had not been started according to schedule.
Mr. Watkinson did not agree that the figures correctly reflected the present position, although he did not challenge their accuracy. He pointed out the well-known difficulties of protecting the interests of everyone concerned in a road scheme, but to my simplc way of thinking, that does not alter the fact that nearly a third of the road schemes were late starters. Why be furtive about a simple mathematical truth?
Double Block
AN interruption punctuated Mr. Watkinson's statement that traffic was now moving rather more freely in London than before rationing. It must be galling to he held up in the House of Commons as well as on the way there.
Practical Art
I S this the first occasion on which a picture of a bus station has been hung in the Royal Academy? If it is, the honour goes to Mr. H. St. John Harrison, F.R.I.B.A., who has drawn a design by Mr. Alan A. Briggs, F.R.I.B.A..
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architect to the Tilling Association, Ltd., for a bus titation for the Southern National Omnibus Co., Ltd., at Barnstaple. The site adjoins Barnstaple Town railway station and has sentimental associations for me. In the days of my youth I won a quart bottle of beer from my colleague, E. H. Row, feature editor of The Motor, who wagered that I could not drive from London to Barnstaple in a certain time. It was on the site of the proposed new bus station that I sat on the running board of my car and, under the eye of the local policeman, solemnly dispatched my winnings. I look to the Tilling Association to erect a commemorative plaque.
Whatever Next?
BOTH at common law and by reason of the Factories Acts and other legislation, an employer's duty becomes increasingly onerous, but it has not until recently been held to include the duty of employing only men immune from the temptation of horseplay and practical jokes.
In the case of Hudson v. Ridge Manufacturing Co., Ltd., the employers were held liable to an employee who had been injured by horseplay by a fellow workman. This man was well known for these proclivities—a source of possible danger which the court thought the employers should have either controlled or removed.
In the only previous similar case—Smith v. Crossley Brothers, Ltd.—the employers had been held not liable for injury caused to a motor apprentice by a most improper attempt to inflate him made by two other apprentices by means of a compressed-air pipe. The Court of Appeal held that there was no reason to anticipate such behaviour, but I suggest that further evidence as to the inclinations of motor apprentices might have justified a different result!
Canned
" A LUMINIUM Cans: New Type of Winter Suitings ri say's a heading in The Financial Times. I hear that some hauliers, seeking increases in rates, are already equipping themselves with bullet-proof waistcoats.