It's time to fight back
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• National Freight Consortium president Sir Peter Thompson is calling on hauliers to donate 0.1% of their turnover to fund a pro-trucking publicity campaign.
With this scale of funding the industry "would be capable of changing the attitude of the society we live in," says Sir Peter.
Hauliers do not fight back hard enough when criticised by the public and politicians, he told delegates at the Road Haulage Association conference: "All we have done is made the odd video or written the odd article."
He slammed Transport Secretary Malcolm Rifldnd's plan to put more emphasis on rail freight, but added that hauliers who were "not a credit to the industry" should be barred from RHA membership. The association's entry rules were "not as tight as they should be," he said.
However, Sir Peter conceded that higher standards, such as a requirement to have the BS5750 quality mark, would be seen as "elitist" by some smaller companies.