Back door to 33 tonnes?
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HAULIERS have made a back-door bid to be allowed to run four-axle articulated lorries at 33 tonnes. ALAN MILLAR reports.
Road Haulage Association director-general Freddie Plaskett has written to Transport Under Secretary David Mitchell, asking the Government to grant this concession if it refuses to remove the requirement for certain tandem-axle semi-trailers to be fitted with sideguards.
Industry pressure earlier this year persuaded the Government to grant a honeymoon period to operators whose semi-trailers plated at over 26,000kg would never be operated at over 32.5 tonnes with tractive units.
This runs until January 1 next year, when all of the vehicles will have to be fitted with guards, and the Department of Transport insisted this week that there is no question of the deadline being extended again. It is law that guards must be fitted by then. However, Mr Plaskett has told Mr Mitchell that there is a good case for never requiring sideguards to be fitted to these semitrailers, if they never operate above 32.5 tonnes.
He claimed that the semitrailers are a "working asset with a short life," that the sideguards reduce the vehicles' payload, and that vehicles temporarily imported from abroad need not have sideguards fitted if they are registered in another country.
This last claim stems from the publicity Norfolk Line attracted this year when it was revealed that its trailers were all registered and tested in the Netherlands, where sideguard requirements are much less onerous than in Britain.
York Trailer estimated this week that sideguards weigh around 200kg per pair, and that it would cost an operator £180 to have them retro-fitted to each semi-trailer.
The sting in the tail of the RHA's appeal is that it wants Mr Mitchell to increase the maximum permitted train weight for four-axled artics from 32.5 to 33 tonnes, if he refuses to extend the sideguard concession.
This would go some way toward the 34-tonner which the Government killed last year to appease Tory backbench MPs opposed to heavier lorries, and would give a payload bonus of around 300kg per vehicle.
RHA technical officer Mike Kneen told CM that there have been representations from operators who are concerned about the cost of fitting sideguards, and said that the bid for a 33-tonne weight limit was being submitted "to see what the DTp has to say". He would n be drawn about whether it was negotiable figure, or if it was i sisting only on an extra hE tonne.
Mr Kneen added that the RIwould hope to pay "as little t, as possible" for running 33-to ners. The Government has E ready indicated it thinks 32. tonners may be under-taxed.
For the environmental lobk Transport 2000's Nick Lest said the RHA appeared to I saying that hauliers did not wa to comply with the law if it cc them money. "It sounds very u reasonable in many ways," I commented.