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Straws in the Wind

9th January 1948, Page 26
9th January 1948
Page 26
Page 26, 9th January 1948 — Straws in the Wind
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Which of the following most accurately describes the problem?

IN Essex bus crews have been on strike because 1 they were called upon to man buses so old as to be considered dangerous by them. In Yorkshire a Ministry of Transport inquiry has been held into an accident in which the propeller shaft of a bus snapped and nine persons were killed. In Lancashire the front wheel of a lorry came off because of worn parts, causing a double-decker bus to overturn and injure its passengers.

All over the country buses 12 years of age and more are manfully struggling along with their human cargo, having already covered a mileage which the average car owner would find incredible and having survived a war in which safety standards of loading were abandoned and maintenance necessarily cut to the bone. These incidents and others like them are indications that. despite the best efforts of bus operators, some British buses are at present in a dangerously bad condition: the ,accidents are straws in a wind that may soon become a gale.

But what steps can be taken? The operator can continue to do only his best The real remedies now lie with those Government departments responsible for the supply of raw material to manufacturers of chassis, spares and components, the supply of labour to handle those raw materials and the finished products into which they are made, the ratio of exported vehicles to those for home service, and constructional regulations which ensure that many vehicles designed for the overseas markets are illegal at home. Give the British operator the equipment and he will carry the passengers safely. At present that equipmen't is going overseas to look for dollars, whilst on the home front the deterioration continues at the sacrifice of lives.

Watching the process from an almost untenable position somewhere in the centre of a triangle formed by the worried operators, the impervious Ministries and the, as yet, lethargic public, is a miserable group of certifying officers with their underpaid vehicle examiners.

To the operator the examiner has never been more than a vanguard of unnecessary bureaucracy, with a status to-day, measured by his salary. of someone only slightly more important than his drivers. To the public, however, as represented by Members of Parliament. local councillors and the daily Press, he will be the professional guardian who has failed to guard them. He will find himself. in the Army phrase, "carrying the can back."

If, to avoid such a fate, the examiner insists on applying strict pre-war standards, he will be forced to warn some vehicles off the road altogether, thereby incurring the odium of both the public and his superior officers. Only an increased allocation of vehicles to the home market can solve his dilemma.

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Organisations: Army, Ministry of Transport

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