3OUND vi" Duncan Maclean, security officer at a British Gas
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distribution depot, wants a new transport trade body to push for the interests of the industry...
• To mold off about a road transport issue write to Patric Cunnane (patric.cunnane(1
rbi.co.uk) or fax your views (up to 600 wards) to Dicky Clarke on 020 8652 8912.
id, have worked in the road transport industry for the past 20 years as an HGV driver and commercial vehicle cleaning contractor. Urgent action is needed to reverse the downward direction in which the UK road transport industry has traveled.
z Demonstrations over the past four years against penal taxation policies, the shortage of good drivers and the general lack of cc . -rc interest evidently shown in a career in the industry, graphically illustrate the problems it needs to address.
-8' Many sections of the public think that truck drivers go around g with eggy string vests, sit on upturned buckets, and need both c6 hands to change the gears of their seriously anti-social
0 "juggernauts" when supposedly fairies must be moving the 0 ci country's goods, Unfortunately, this is an image we have allowed to be spouted by the anti-lorry brigade and the popular {gutter) press who fail to stir the trade bodies, which claim to represent the industry, from their deep sleep.
Having said that, there are operators within the industry who frankly have no place in it. Entry is gained too easily and constantlyslashed enforcement budgets help keep them in ct.
I also think that if less time was spent "crowing'. about the leading players in the industry and more on aspiring to their standards, we would all be better off. In spite of having no real leadership and an acute inability to talk ourselves up, we are still one of the world's foremost road haulage nations. Imagine how much better we could be with real leadership from within the industry.
I am suggesting that the best people the road transport sector can muster should get their heads together and pool proposals as to how we set up a pro-active, industry-wide transport trade body to take UK road transport into the future.
Although the punitive taxation issue is critical to our ability to compete with our Continental competitors and to our wherewithal to return an acceptable profit margin in order to invest in our future, it is far from the only major issue facing the industry.
What about delays at RDCs, consignor liability, heavy fines for carrying illegal immigrants and unfair treatment of UK hauliers on international work who are caught up in someone else's dispute and are still awaiting compensation for losing work? And all of this is in the Single Market. At home, local authority parking provision for trucks is being cut as I write this.
These are just some of the issues this new body would have in its in-tray marked for urgent attention.
Another immediate issue is undoubtedly where to go from here with the fuel duty campaign. I attended two Road Haulage Association meetings since the fuel site demonstrations. To be honest I was appalled. Was this representative of the industry as a whole? No, it clearly was not, and the reason why returns to leadership.
if something much more sophisticated than direct confrontation is proposed to further the industry's case I am convinced most of the mainstream operators would throw their weight behind it. Anything less than that will not lead to much.
Of the few hauliers present at the Castle Donington meeting last year, most are willing to get involved with anyone who appears to be sympathetic to their cause. This is unWse—they are not welcome friends. Let us do something about this now before the industry's image is further tarnished.
• If you have any suggestions for a view trade body please contact me on 01235 291460 or e-mail me at maclean.keen.4 virgin. net.