SAVE US FROM EXTINCTION I have been a reader of
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CM for more than 25 years, and drove HGVs for a living until an injury 10 years ago. During the past quarter of a century I have watched in amazement as the haulage industry in the UK has shot itself in the foot time and time again.
When I entered the industry in the early seventies, foreign trucks were beginning to make their mark on British roads. UK hauliers took to these new vehicles like ducks to water; deserting in droves their traditional suppliers such as Guy, Leyland, and Atkinson. The European trucks had glamour, if not engineering, whereas British wagons were perceived as old fashioned.
Drivers who saw these shiny new tilt-cabbed sleeper's fought among themselves for the chance to get behind the wheel of trucks with power steering and synchromesh gearboxes in the (mistaken) belief that their egos were being massaged.
What we have today is trucks that any fool can drive. All skill has been designed out at the expense of ever-more frippery and gimmicks, with 500hp and a 16-speed gearbox perceived as essential to propel 40 tonnes at 56mph!
We have seen the end of British truck-making, the loss of transport cafes and an escalation of ruthless transport managers exploiting drivers.
Now the haulage industry is under severe threat from foreign competition, the circle has been completed. The heroes of trucking, the Tories, are entirely to blame for the present financial plight of truck operators.
Competition was allowed to flourish to such an extent that Mrs Thatcher once stood up in the House of Commons and announced that haulage costs in Britain had dropped by over 25% in two years. Not all of this drop, you will recall, was due to the squeeze in drivers' wages.
If a significant number of haulage businesses fail as a direct result of the forthcoming hike in fuel prices, they do not deserve to be in business in the first place, and the industry will be better off without them.
Hauliers' proud boast that they are an industry of individuals has come back to haunt them. While there are people happy to work for peanuts, the industry will have more than its fair share of monkeys. The suicidal rates will eventually kill the industry as fast as if the Government banned lorries.
If your customers are ertioying a 10% return on capital, why aren't you? If Asda et al tell you they cannot afford your new, viable rates, stick together and refuse to move their goods. We'll soon see who gives in. Supermarkets are not the only ones who can run "cartels".
If you want to show Joe Public how much he depends on you and your drivers, simply remove your fleets from the roads one Monday and refuse to go back until you have made your point—say by Thursday.
It is too late to save the British truck industry. Let us hope it is not too late to save British trucking.
John Benton
Moxley, West Midlands.