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Paved with your gold
Page 9
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This week, we learnt how much it will cost to use the long-anticipated Midland Expressway.
At pi for driving a truck along the 27-mile long toll route, Commercial Motor readers will feel it's: a) expensive; b) very expensive or; c) totally irrelevant as they'll pass the charge on to their customers anyway. If you answered 'c', then good luck to you!
The concept of a congestion-busting 'alternative' toll route raises some interesting questions. Like why should 'essential users' like trucks pay so much more than the £3 for cars, when the current congestion is the direct result of having to
accommodate 23 million cars on our national road network—not 410,000 HGVs? Secondly, if truck operators use the planned toll route because the MG is too congested to guarantee delivery times, shouldn't they get airr rebate on their road tax every time they take the Expressway? It's hardly right that they should then pay VED for roads that are too busy to use.