Fuel-cap sense

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Sir,

With reference to your article “The War Against the Car-Owner” ( January 1976 issue) I feel that your correspondent ought to get his priorities right.

He quotes two examples of “more trivial, non-criminal, purely technical motoring lapses”. I agree totally with his first example, but find his condemnation of the law for their handling of the offence of using a cloth hung as a replacement for a lost petrol cap absolutely diabolical.

I regard this as a criminal offence, and believe that the offender should have been fined at least double the amount that she was.

As a motorcyclist, I have become very much more aware of road surface – conditions than most car drivers, and the one thing that I regard as the most dangerous of all is the trail of petrol or diesel left by a vehicle without a secure filler cap or no cap at all several times recently I nave cranked over on to a roundabout or corner to find a trail of fuel in my path, and followed this for more than half a mile.

As for the writer’s question, “What do you do when a petrol station attendant fails to replace the cap after serving you with fuel?”—my answer is that it is not the attendant’s responsibility to make sure that a customer’s vehicle is roadworthy, but it IS the DRIVER’S.

Glasgow Peter D. Causer