Quaint British customs — a Belgian vievt
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We invited Joe Teirlynck, a well-known figure in Continental road transport, to wrii a candid account of the British scene as h€ finds it. So he came across from Belgium by ferry . .. via Dover
"I was lucky, this time! They cleared my 21 entries in less than three hours Dover; Eastern docks: the bottleneck WE ARRIVED at the Intertransport garage at the very moment Willy, one of the nine drivers crossing the Channel, pulled in. The day, Saturday, November 20,1982. The time: 11am.
"The crossing was rough indeed, last night. Or should I say this morning. I think the storm was trying to blow us off the surface of the sea. I nonetheless slept a little. Rough seas don't bother me at all and I was rather satisfied, last night. The last week has indeed been a good one. Would you for instance believe me if I told you that, when the boat docked at Dover in the early hours of Thursday morning, I had the really lucky break to have my 21 entries cleared in less than three hours and that I skipped examination?"
Willy speaks Dutch, with a typical accent that is only to be found in the vicinity of Sint Nikleas, the town in which every body is a born Santa Claus fan, even the grown-ups. But Willy uses quite a number of English words whenever he opens up about what happens, every day of the week, with the 2,500 "rigs" trying to clear through customs at the Eastern Docks.
He has been on the Channel run for 27 years. When he is not on one of Sealink's ferryboats, you'll find him on the motorways of Belgium and Germany, or on the roads to Birmingham, Manchester or Dublin. Just like his eight colleagues. He joined the Intertransport International Haulage company a little over a year ago. He likes his job.
While we were chatting, Guido Van Himst, the owner and manager of Intertransport, came and joined our conversation. Willy's papers are lying on the desk. They will be taken care of when the interview is over. It takes time to check and file them.
Many documents are required to transport goods from one country to another, even within the Common Market. Some international road transporters even think that for every country that joins the EEC at least 10 more forms are "introduced".
Guido changes the subject. Or tries. "Our nine artics — we have one spare trailer only — are on the road most of the time or aboard a ferry-boat. As a matter of fact, we are ideally located, here in Northern Belgium, for the runs we do. I hope you will not consider my using the word 'Northern' as a bit preposterous in a country as small as ours. We do have a Southern Belgium also, through which we drive when we go to Germany.
"We are mostly engaged in pre-distribution transport — if you'll grant the expression. In Germany, we have one big client, Danzas from Aachen. In England, we work for — and with — P. Hauser Ltd. In Ireland, our correspondent is Meadows, from Dublin. All three are forwarding agents.
"We at Intertransport provide the wheels for the German goods sold across the Channel and for the English and/or Irish goods sold in Germany. A typical run for one of our English drivers, as they sometimes call themselves (and there are six of them, while the three others, who do Dublin, are our Irish drivers), means that he leaves the garage either on the Monday morning at the crack of dawn or, more often, on the Sunday evening, en route for Stuttgart, eg.
"There he usually delivers the goods coming from overseas (the UK for him!) at the main depot of the List und Bachmeier Cy. and picks up a new load, either on the premises or at a nearby factory. Nearby can mean somewhere 250km away from Stuttgart, you know! Our man is normally back here, in St Pauwels, by Tuesday night. If he has something to report about his artic, our mechanic tends to it right away."
That is the time that Guido Van Himst, or his wife, fills in the various papers and documents which are checked by the custom officials each time the artics leave the country and enter another one. At least one document is required for each parcel to be delivered to a specific address. They are called "entry papers" or "entries". The fuel tanks are also filled up to the caps. This is, for a Belgian operator, an important cast-reducing operation, at least if he can avoid purchasing diesel oil in England or in Ireland.
This is not only due to the fact that, in Belgium, vat on road transport fuel is a "deductible" tax, but also because the basic price of diesel oil is (comparatively speaking) quite low.
The Belgian Road Haulage Association has indeed been quite successful, over the past five years, in preventing the Government from levying excise-taxes on diesel oil for road transport to the same levels as on petrol, for example. Furthermore, the Belgian subsidiaries of the large, international and multinational oil concerns are currently engaged in a "discount" war that is beneficial for the road hauliers as long as it is being fought! Finally, one should not forget that the Belgian Franc, which was devalued in early 1982, is rather under-valued — at present — compared to the pound sterling of which the rate has reached such high levels (at least for the Continentals that the Belgians are) because it is the currency of a petrol produc ing country! Where, in the U could one find a haulier wl wouldn't appreciate paying little as 80p a gallon for dies. oil!
"Our drivers leave St Pauwi after a good night's rest, eith on the Wednesday morning or the afternoon, according to t reservation we can get for the on the ferry from Ostende from Zeebrugge. The shorter t boat trip, the better. Our truc have to cover mileage on th, own power. That is when th make money. Not when they being transported."
And then there is Dover! Luc are the ones whose ship anchc at the Western Docks of Dov But which ferry-boat does? Frc the Eastern Docks, 2,500 drive peer every day with envy at t 20-odd rigs which move abc on the western parking area. E cause they move. At the Easte Docks, they wait. Normal we ing time is anything but norm Anything goes. Five hours, hours, 15 hours, 30 hours.
"You see", says Willy, "t number of rigs has nev stopped increasing while t number of customs officials h remained unchanged over t years. The civil servants C
uman beings, like you and me then the load of work increases t the railway terminals, the umber of customs officials in'eased there.
"When the ferry-boats started, ith increasing regularity makig hundreds of drops at the 3 me time (and the number of .ailers without tractors has ever stopped increasing too!) rid Her Majesty's Custom's fficials had to clear those 'rough their services with the ime number of employees, ley went on strike. Work to rule :rikes. A few months ago, a )mputer system was brought at Dover's Eastern Docks, to 3eed up matters! Up to this ate, to no avail."
This state of affairs is not one ihich Willy and the other drivrs like. They consider the situaon as being totally un-British. hey don't want to put the lame on the customs as such. hey understand, they say.
"It's not that we're not well iken care of. There is a magnifient sitting-room that's been put I our disposition. With colour ?Ily! The restaurant's fine and le showers are the cleanest in le world.
"It's the waiting. Totally puroseless. It's the fact that noody can tell us when our enries will be cleared, whether or lot and when! we'll have to
o to the examination.
"If we expect that that day clearing the customs will take. ight hours and if, consequently, we decide to take a nap in the ab, it will be precisely that day
that matters are speeded up. And that, after seven hours, eg, we are being put up for examination. The little light goes on next our truck's number ... and we're not there! The Customs officials might conclude that we're not in a hurry ... and they usually do. We are postponed and not posted again, for examination, for one, three or eight hours.
"Then again, it's only the waiting that's bothersome. When the customs want to check what's in a specific parcel or case, they open the trailer by themselves. They take care of the unloading, the checking and the reloading. Neatly. Efficiently. But . . . they usually take their time. Our time.
"And they never tell us when they will check our entries, our trucks, the goods we transport. It's really the waiting that has become the one and only problem. But it's a very serious one."
All Intertransport drivers prefer to be on English roads to those of any other country. They like the people they meet, their mentality, the way they think, act and react. They like the way the police behave towards them. They do not often have to pay fines for speeding, especially when the "extra speed" is not that much "extra". When "caught" with too many consecutive hours of driving time, they usually do not get a ticket, like in Germany where it seems to them at least that the "road officials" distribute fines (and rather heavy onesl for the sheer pleasure of distributing them.
Drivers that are supposed to have been driving too many long hours are invited by the British Police to park their rig at the nearest convenient parking place and to take quite a few hours "napping" time.
Continental drivers, like our Intertransport one, affirm that the UK could be a drivers' paradise but for three drawbacks, the first one being the Eastern Docks bottleneck, of course. The second is the language, naturally. In the UK, you can ask and get anything you want in any language as long as it is English. Pidgin' English is sufficient, though!
The third drawback is of a different nature. It concerns the trade unions and the way their affiliates react. Truly as members of their union! Willy, eg, cannot understand that the helping hand he gets when loading or unloading even a small parcel into or from his truck is no longer there after hours and "upon instructions of my union", even when the owner of the hand is still present.
"It is that kind of thinking that may ruin a trade and a country and it nearly succeeded in doing so when the former gov ernment was in power. It's certainly something that will cause the doom of the trade unions themselves, if they don't wake up to the present day reality." When Guido Van Himst speaks that way, his drivers approve.
And nobody cares whether anybody in the lntertransport company is a member of a trade union. Or isn't.
"But as soon as we are out of the Eastern Docks parking lot, we feel happy again," Willy adds. "If we are in need of help, we know we'll get it. When I'm at the wheel, my one and only concern is to be as quickly as can be at Walsall, or and this I do prefer at Manchester's MIFT.
"And it's not only because I'll take that now much-neededshower or have that much needed night's rest (after the normal 'wee bit of the hard stuff', you know) or eat that magnificent institutional repast that is called breakfast over there (don't speak about the other meals, for heaven's sake! You must learn to cook like the Continentals for luncheon and dinner, your roastbeef being the exception if and when not overdone!).
"It's because, when I load in Manchester or in neighbouring cities, Messrs Hauser prepare the T2 and I don't have to ask the Dover customs to imprint their stamp on my T-2 document: it also takes hours and I don't like to miss the Friday night ferry because of them."
The short trip from Ostend or Zeebrugge to St Pauwels rounds the journey off. The "Ireland" drivers have a different timetable, but, they too, are glad to be home after another week abroad. Their reasons for complaining about the delays at the Eastern Docks are quite a bit attenuated when they see that the Irish drivers are kept "waiting" twice as long as any driver of any other nationality.
But that, surely, belongs to another yet untold story, one that has nothing to do with too few civil servants at the Dover Customs, or with a computer that is not yet fully operational.
"I'd rather not speak about that," says Willy, while putting on his driver's coat a sure sign that, by leaving, he doesn't want to get involved in this touchy subject. -This kind of behaviour obviously doesn't fit my idea of the so well-known English fairplay. I'm sure, though, that that will not go on much longer ..."
We had to leave it at that. The conversation wilted like an autumn leaf in an icy wind. Everyone looked at everyone else. No seconds for the cups of coffee.