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Bird's Eye
Page 63
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ViewBY THE HAWK
Winking and blinking?
HOW good is your eyesight? The question is relevant because the Association of Optical Practitioners has been carrying out another survey on drivers, in conjunction with RoSPA. This is not an official test, but the findings will be published in a report. You may remember that two years ago the AOP published a report—based on research over five years—which showed that some 150,000 drivers in the UK held their licences illegally, because they could not pass the Ministry of Transport vision test. Of course, the point is that eyesight deteriorates, sometimes unnoticed, and the ability to read a number plate at 25 yards slowly disappears.
The Road Research Laboratory also is looking into the problem, but in the meantime the AOP thinks the official test is quite inadequate—and would like to see the quality of side and depth vision tested, as well as the ability to see straight ahead.
.C7 for charity
ALEX MILLER (left) of Ipswich phoned COMMERCIAL MOTOR office this week to say: "I've £.7 here to donate to a deserving charity—you name it."
Apparently, 15 years ago Alex was fined .E7 for illegal operation of a C-licensed vehicle. He carried top soil which he sold and it was construed that he was working for reward.
Eighteen months ago he read in CM of a similar conviction against a large public works contractor being quashed on appeal in the Queen's Bench Division.
Alex's solicitors wrote to the Home Office and obtained a pardon. He then asked for the return of his fine: he received it last week. Before he rang off Alex asked lain Sherriff: "What's the interest on £7 for 15 years?"
No job for Tank Corps!
WHEN a 14-ton tanker was discovered giving off an explosive gas, the job of preventing a premature fireworks display fell to the Army bomb disposal unit, Catterick.
The tanker stood about 100 yards from a gasometer at Hetton-le-Hole, Co. Durham, and was made safe by Captain Bob Fitzsimmons who removed the lids from the top of the tanker with explosives.
So if you ever get yourself into a hole—be it Hetton-le or any other—remember that if the boys in blue cannot help you, there are 243,300 Army lads scattered around Britain. But don't bother to call the Tank Corps; you'll be on the wrong track if you do ....
Not so merry go round
FOR THE PAST couple of years operators have been careful to buy new vehicles which will measure up to the proposed new braking standards. Twelve months ago a West Midlands operator, learning that one such purchase would not meet the standards, bought a conversion kit. Imagine his horror when he discovered recently that he now needs to buy a conversion kit for the conversion kit!
On-off-on for one journey!
WE NEED to keep a sense of humour when using some of this country's public transport services.
Passengers at Wolverton, Bucks, have to get off the bus and walk 20 yards across a bridge and join it the other side because the bridge is unsafe for heavy traffic. Out in the country; idyllic spot? By no means—it's in Stratford Road, the town's main through road.
So United Counties Omnibus Co. has told its staff that buses can only use the bridge unladen. So far I have heard no scheme to give passengers a rebate for their 20 yards.
Service? Not in my book
OUTSIDE Victoria Station the other night, I got on a bus as two Americans were getting off. One said to the other: "How's that for service?"
I nearly told him, as 25 minutes earlier I had been told by an inspector that the bus I wanted would be in at any minute . .
Prophecy of doom
ONE OF THE HIGHLIGHTS of the transport world's London social calendar is the TMC Ladies' Festival. And this year, with a record 500 members and guests at Grosvenor House, Park Lane, it was no exception.
But one change was the deviation from the usual pattern when speakers have a go at MoT legislation. I certainly expected something to be said. After all it was the club's last social event before Barbara Castle's White Paper. Then I had reckoned without president Jack Scriven, who declared: "This is not the place for politics."
Unfortunately he had not told this to Festival secretary Peter Goodrum! Inside the menu card was this quote from Chesterfield: "Enjoy every moment—pleasures do not last."
Crash course
TO MAKE their representatives completely au fail with the new braking regulations coming into effect in the New Year, Small and Parkes are arranging two-day courses on the new legislation.
I suppose if you are selling brake linings, you try to improve the efficiency of your men as well as your products.
SNAPPED BY McPHILBY
Every day a Freightliner passes through Dundee from Aberdeen— and this is it. But where has all the traffic gone? Empty spaces on the flat wagons—and some empty containers, too. And though you may not be able to discern it here, the original photo (daringly snapped from a bridge by our own special agent) shows that all the railway chat in court about expert roping and sheeting for 75 mph was piled on a bit too strong to be true.