TIME TO MAKE A STAND?
Page 7
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he British are a placid lot: slow to anger, quick to forgive. But back a Brit into a corner and he tends to come out fighting. Wellingborough-based operator JS Cook & Son certainly feels like it's been pushed too far—it's planning to blockade Dover (see lead story, page 4). Futile gesture or final straw? It would be easy to dimiss one haulier's threat of direct action as doomed to failure. But whose fault it that? JS Cook for being naive? Or the 68,999 other 0-licence holders in the country who sit back and accept the status quo? It's interesting to see the other side of the coin wnen it comes to complaining. As JS Cook prepares to blockade Dover the RHA is calling for urgent action on costs, congestion, enforcement and the environment in its "manifesto" to the next Parliament. "Lorry costs and taxation are too high," it says. Yes, but how far is it prepared to go to get things changed? The RHA's stance on traffic jams wasn't helped by the recent remarks from its incoming director-general about the Newbury Bypass. As one reader notes in our letters page: "I think it's about time someone explained to Mr Norris that the R in RHA is for roads". Meanwhile haulage prospects are expected to get worse over the coming months with fewer companies antcipating any increase in demand for their services. 5o before we all write off JS Cook's blockade plan it might be worth considering how British operators are suffering under the present do nothing regime—and that major conflicts have been known to start from minor events. Does the name Gavrilo Princip ring a bell with anybody? For those who don't remember, it was his shot that started the Great War.