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Page 40
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One-eyed drivers
Surely, the competence or otherwise of a one-eyed person to drive a vehicle is related to his ability to accurately judge distances.
Those people blessed with perfect vision in both eyes have a built-in "range-finder" and can therefore judge distances by immediate perception. The person with sight in only the one eye judges distances by experience.
It is a curious aspect that a one-eyed person is more suited to judge distances through a rear view mirror than a normally sighted person simply because he can judge distance by the size of the object being viewed. Normally sighted persons lack this ability.
I can see no reason why a person without sight in one eye should be denied a licence provided he can demonstrate his ability to judge distances with reasonable accuracy. At the same time, normally sighted persons should be examined to ascertain if they can judge distances accurately through a rear view mirror. The inability to do this has possibly caused many accidents) A person who loses the sight of one eye would need a little time to gain experience in the judgment of distances. A person who is temporarily denied the sight in one eye should not drive whilst so affected. Such a person would certainly be a greater danger to other road users than a person permanently affected.
R. HARDING, BEM, AIRTE, AMInstTA, AMIMI. Director, Hardings (Transport) Ltd., Bucks.
Recovery and service
I notice in CM's "24hr and Emergency Service" guide that in most cases recovery and service seem to be restricted to office hours. The user of commercial vehicles today feels that this is inadequate; the retail garage trade is unable to supply the answer to the need of service outside office hours which your list seems to bear out.
The writer has been in heavy haulage for 30 years and is now in the retail garage trade. On entering this new.field I aimed at trying to foster goodwill between the retail trade and the transport industry, from the one vehicle operator to the large fleet operator.
I believe that we in the retail trade should endeavour to offer the vital link required to assist the operator by giving every facility in catering for his needs, breakdown-wise, when his vehicle is many hundreds of miles from base, and offering a complete maintenance schedule with necessary documentation for MoT requirements, bearing in mind, the single machine operator in particular.
It is also necessary to back up sales with an efficient after-sales service. As a fleet engineer I have found this to be sadly lacking over recent years. as to place a vehicle in a retail garage for repairs proved too costly an exercise.
I feel sure that if more effort were spent by the garage trade in trying to assist the operator in all aspects of road transport, not just the odd repair item, but the vast problems involved in the _everyday running of a fleet of vehicles and MoT requirements, keeping ahead of all requirements. Since May 1969 I have offered our customers, along with an after-sales service, a customer maintenance schedule complete with documents of the various schedules carried out. condition of vehicle and pending possible defects which, although they do not prevent the vehicle's immediate operation, can be liaised at a mutually convenient time. To back this up I instigated shift work which is proving most successful in operation.
For information, I have a service for workshop repairs from 0600-2000 hours daily on Monday to Friday, inclusive, 0830-1230 Saturdays and 0830-1230 Sundays, with a "stand-by" team on telephone call for the remaining hours of Saturday and Sunday. Three recovery vehicles enabling recovery of up to 32 tons.
The workshop service offers complete inspection for MoT examination, complete with the latest brake testing equipment including load simulator and check weighing. The customer is then given a complete assessment of his vehicle faults thus enabling him to make the necessary budget for MoT examination. be it in his own workshop or any reputable garage he may decide to use, this being an unbiased document with only the owner's benefit in mind. Coupled with this is a fairminded costing, which can only make for good relationship between the operator and the retail garage.
D. ADAMS, Commercial Service Manager, Fletcher's (Swansea) Ltd.
Woman's viewpoint
At last CM is beginning to realize that not all of its readers are male--thank you sc much for the gorgeous he-man on the cover for the issue of December 19.
How about featuring a bus chassis and showing all the CM staff in the same way?
More seriously I?) I was nearly in tears of laughter over the driver's report on page 24—surely the author's name should be published?
Thank you for the free "24-hour recovery" book given on December 12—most useful. WOMAN DRIVER, (Name and address supplied). [Nice thought, but CM staff are shivering at the prospect of coming out from behind their typewriters for such exposure. We're not sure whether it's modesty or the weather—Ed.]