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Small promises poorly kept
Page 66
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The government's about to get in again — whoever wins. Austin
Caulfield wonders when it will realise what the industry needs...
The election is just two weeks away and the political parties are out in force trying to win your vote.
So far I've heard little promise of a reduction in fuel duty, raising the speed limits for trucks on suitable single carriageway roads or driver training programmes.
As usual, the railways appear to have captured the parties' imaginations.The current government has promised to invest £20bn on the trains over the next few years if it wins a third term. Now, if that means we can get trains running up and down the country on time and safely very good, but even if the capacity is tripled what effect will it have on the roads? Not one iota.
When will politicians realise that the road network is just as important for the 400,000 trucks that travel across the UK every day, and that rather than just patching the potholes, we need a completely new network before the existing one totally collapses I've said it before and I'll say it again, the government needs to look to the Continent to see how road building should be done; there, plans are made and building begins within weeks, not years.
Fuel duty will again become another issue for the political parties to chew over. The Chancellor's recent decision to freeze excise duty on diesel has to be welcomed, but we need longterm security; not just until September, when Brown, or whoever it is, can push the duty back up and we're be back to where we started. This week I've been quoted 76p a litre for diesel, over £4 a gallon. With fuel accounting for a third of the cost of road haulage how much longer can we survive with these extortionate costs?
Are we meant to keep putting up with them and eroding profit margins? Let's hope the next government begins to realise the importance of our industry and the fact that we can no longer compete with our fellow European& Some hope...
No change there
Finally, we got through the first week of the Working Time Directive without any problems, except drivers asking us for advice, which we tried to answer as best as possible.
But while we were struggling to rearrange delivery schedules to cope with the restrictions of the 48-hour week I read an article about the UK appearing to be the only European state trying to work the system properly.
Now how surprising is that? •