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Still closer to the poor house than a millionaire's mansion

29th September 2005
Page 68
Page 68, 29th September 2005 — Still closer to the poor house than a millionaire's mansion
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Which of the following most accurately describes the problem?

Former columnist Brian Lee returns to review his year in transport...

Aweek is a long time in politics, according to the late Harold Wilson,so when I was asked to reflect on a year in road transport I thought I would till libraries.

Then I reflected on the main concerns over the past year. Customers. Well, there's always one that's going through a lean time and they drag you into the vortex. Last year, next year... you will never get all of them on song because if that were the case there would be thousands of well-to-do hauliers, while in fact the poor houses are overflowing with us.

We need a rebate

Fuel.That will always be an issue. What we have to do is negotiate an essential user rebate and encourage the Chancellor to fill the void by hiking the duty up on non-essential users (which might help ease congestion as well).

Congestion. It's got worse and continues to do so. My concern is that I can see no moves from government to do something. One day, and that day's not too far away, the country will simply come to a grinding halt.

To ease congestion politicians need to take major decisive actions and quickly New roads, fewer cars, better public transport; these solutions, if ever taken, will take decades to work, but then politicians and decisiveness are not common bedfellows.

The driver shortage.! feel this has eased, mainly thanks to the availability of Eastern Europeans. I advertised locally three months ago and was pleasantly surprised by the number and quantity of applicants.

Although wages are still the main issue, nowadays drivers are looking at the whole package: uniforms, pensions, holidays and a Monday-to-Friday week.Very few of them, it seems, wish to work Saturday mornings.

Once upon a time Saturday mornings were asocial occasion: catching up on chat,washing the vehicle.., now there's no need to catch up on chat; that's done in real time throughout the week with mobile phones.

The vehicle washing is done on a Sunday by a dedicated washer — a direct consequence of the WorkingTime Directive.

Every minute's precious

Every minute of a driver's working time is precious, particularly for the tipper men as periods of availability don't happen. Hopefully this tinkering with the working time is over and we can set the stall out for the future, because it has been costly.

With fuel and the costs of the WTD impacting on the bottom line we will continue to remain closer to the poor house than millionaires' row. u

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