She says...

Press, 10 May 1979, Page 19

She says...

All my fears of having a load fall from a truck on to my car, and on to me, have been rekindled by some recent accidents in Christchurch. Is enough

attention being paid to the dangers of loose loads by | drivers, carrying firms and the enforcement authorii ties? I think not. There have been many nasty accidents caused by things falling from trucks in the last few years. In almost every case, the loads fell because they were dangerously stacked or not properly secured. Often motorists — and sometimes pedestrians — have been killed or injured as a result of this carelessness.

And it still goes on. A friend of mine works in a building on a city street often used by heavy traffic. Almost every week some truck sheds part of its load nearby. The loads have included crates of crockery, crates of softdrink, wool bales, and heavy machinery — just to name a few potentially lethal items. In the last week, I’ve twice followed trucks with loads teetering on the point of collapse from rhe tray. Needless to say, I’ve certainly kept well back. The amazing thing to me was that in both cases it was perfectly obvious to anyone with a gram of sense that the loads were likely to be lost. Surely, the drivers could not be so incompetent as not to be aware of this? If so, they shouldn’t be in their jobs. I believe that the supervision of load safety on trucks needs to be a great deal closer than it is now. When a load is lost — and in Christchurch, I’d say that several are lost every day — the penalties on both drivers and the firms owning the vehicles should be very severe indeed.

That’s what criminal carelessness deserves.— Barbara Petre.