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TIME TRAVELLER
Page 28
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Our anachronistic review in celebration of the universal law...what goes around, comes around.
75 years ago: 12 June 1928 Commercial Motor welcomed the arrival of one of the first diesel-engined commercial vehicles to the UK market. In its roadtest, CM said it was able to develop its power at speeds ranging between 3oorpm and 1,300rpm. It could be started without any manual effort in less than 30 seconds and required no warming up before pulling the vehicle away with acceleration that was truly remarkable.
It also utilised a non-tax fuel costing 4c1 per gallon and ran more miles to the gallon, required fewer gear changes and could maintain better average speeds on hilly terrain than its petrol-driven counterpart.
50 years ago: 12 June 1953
Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Transport, Gurney Braithwaite, urged operators to pay more attention to the maintenance of their vehicles. Opening a road safety conference he said that far too many vehicles on the roads had poor brakes and inefficient lights. He said that the government was seriously concerned about road accidents. It had aimed for a io% reduction in road accidents in the Coronation year, but the number had in fact risen by that amount. It would be necessary to achieve a 15% reduction over the rest of the year if its target was to be reached.
25 years ago: 16 June 1978
The Department of Transport announced that warning devices would be fitted to some bridges to prevent heavy vehicles hitting them. The move came following an inquiry into a previous accident where a truck carrying a digger hit a railway bridge in Aberdeen and caused a train with 54 passengers on board to overturn. One of the devices was an audible warning system activated by tubes suspended from a gantry positioned at the point where the bridge cannot be avoided. The other consisted of an infrared beam which, when broken by the passage of an over-height truck, would activate a sign marked: "Heavy Vehicle Divert".