HAS “FELLOWSHIP OF THE ROAD” DIED

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXXIII, 7 December 1940, Page 7

HAS “FELLOWSHIP OF THE ROAD” DIED

j TRUCK DRIVER’S EXPERIENCE ] i The lack of the old-time camarader- 1 | ie—which used to make old-time , j motoring so worth while is to be deI plored. Tine experience which we are C | about to relate may not be the general ! j run of things but it is at least not the 1 I type of treatment that a stranded 1 motorist of twenty years ago would I have received. ! A truck operator. who regularly ( j travels to the West Haven Inlet, has on 5 numerous occassions assisted motorists \ j who have, through some carelessness J jor inexperience, let a wheel slip into | the watertable. In most cases it has 1 been only a matter of an easy pull to J get the car onto the road but the service has been welcomed by the car t owners and cheerfully given by the < truck driver. That is as it should be, a 1 spirit of good fellowship on the road « and reminiscent of the old days when t no one would see any one stuck. Now for the other side of the pic- 1 lure. The same truck driver had the i misfortune to get a wheel down into t the gutter between Taka’ :a and Collingwood. He was unable to get any of a number of passing cars to stop to take a message for assistance. What is the reason? Is it that the car driver thinks he is something above the truck operator? If so it is time that the out- * look of the motorist changed. In many £ instances the truck driver is also a car 5 i owner as well, he is a road user the same as the car driver, and finally the ' average truck driver is a good fellow c , who is ready to help a stranded car , driver. Possibly the truck operator has a { “bad name” in some places through the < failure of the motorist to appreciate < the fact that the handling of a truck is \ something very different from the i driving of a car. It is not possible for i a heavily loaded truck to be driven as 1 close to the side of the road as a car i may be. The weight on the wheels * makes it unwise to risk putting too 1 great a load on the edges of a bank 1 which might give way. High loads 1 make it impossible to “take to the 1 gutter” to allow another vehicle to pass. It is not wise to halt a heavy truck on a stiff grade on account of j the greater difficulty of getting into motion again. Possibly it is due to a ] failure to understand these things that ( the car driver is apt to class some , truck drivers as “road hors” and it is j ( felt that a trip in a heavy truck over | t. Takaka hills or through the Buller i would change the outlook of many i motorists. , The Automobile Association, Nelson, i which body has issued this note, ex- * presses the hope that readers will give some thought to the matter and do 1 their bit towards reviving some of the 1 old spirit of comradeship on the road, j