Britain is too nice to foreign trucks – unlike Europe
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THERE IS ALWAYS talk of a level playing field with the rest of the EU – in my experience I’ve found this level playing field is on the slopes of Mount Everest.
LGVs from the rest of the EU come here and in Dover they are welcomed, sometimes with a ‘free lens’ to stick on the passenger window of the truck, so they don’t whack us. If we need one, it costs about £12. And I have never seen any given out by the French or the Dutch to UK drivers.
Now Kent County Council wants to build a fuel station in ‘the duty free area’ of Dover for foreign hauliers to buy fuel in Britain for cheaper than the British haulier. What a bloody good idea... no doubt the person responsible for this will get a medal from Brussels? If any British haulier goes to the Low Countries its €10 per day; go to Germany, and motorway charges are high; in Switzerland you are taxed by distance travelled – and don’t forget how many borders these countries have.
Britain only has a few ro-ro ports – it would be so easy to collect a toll. But it shouldn’t charge a 12-tonner £80 per year when road tax for a Ford Escort is £180 per year.
And how is it that many hundreds of thousands of pounds in fines have not been collected from foreign trucks for breaches of the London Low Emission Zone? They have got to get on a boat or train at sometime to get home. Put a bloody wheel clamp on them. The Germans would!
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