EEC: We can see through you
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MEMBERSHIP of the EEC has had many effects on the British road transport industry, but alas little has been done to make life simpler.
From those glass-encased towers of Brussels and Luxembourg have flowed restrictive laws on the strict hours a driver may work, the recording instrument which must be used — regardless of the expense involved — in recording those hours, and we have the annual frustration of trying to come to terms with inadequate allocations of permits for international journeys. What an impressive output for an organisation which is supposed to promote free trade. It is not as though the Eurocrats and politicians are faced with such a perfect system that they have nothing else to do. Important road links, like the West Midlands-East Anglia road, inhibit the efficient movement of freight, and there must be a limit beyond which the cross-Channel ferries will not cope, and a tunnel or bridge will have to be built.
Heaven knows, we all pay enough towards the European dream, its red tape, and its butter mountains. The time has long since passed for a start to be made on giving transport the attention it deserves.
A. DIAPHANOUS-STRAPONTIN London, SW1