Comfort for RHA in European report
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BRITISH HAULIERS' pleas in Europe for more rigid controls on the growth of the industry appear to be falling on receptive ears. An influential EEC committee says there should be legal curbs on "cutthroat" private enterprise hauliers.
The EEC Economic and Social Committee, an advisory body with representatives of the unions, employers and other interests in Europe, has published a report entitled Transport policy in the 1980s.
It looks with a jaundiced eye at the current state of the EEC's transport market and the operation of the private sector in particular, asserting: "A market economy does not mean that Market forces must be given a totally free rein and be expected to solve all problems on their own.
The committee admits that surplus capacity and cut-throat competition are found in other branches of industry as well as in the transport sector — "but not to the same degree."
This competition between haulage firms, the report adds, creates such a downward pressure on prices "that the continuity of services is jeopardised."
It goes on: "There is accordingly no alternative but to impose certain restrictions on competition in the interests of a healthy development of the transport sector.
"For it is obvious that cutthroat competition also has an adverse effect on social conditions in transport undertakings and on the longer-term interests of transport users."
It advances another reason for limiting the freedom of private haulage firms — the environment and road safety. It claims: "Traffic in agglomerations has such a grave impact on society that the State must clamp down on transport firms' activities in order to prevent too much damage being done. Noise and atmospheric pollution are cases in point.
The committee's view appears at first sight to be largely in line with that of the Road Haulage Association's international group which in an about-turn earlier this year called for a freeze on the growth of haulage permits and for more strict en forcement of regulations as a "non tariff" restriction on haulage growth.
"The committee's recommendations seem to be in line with what the international functional group has been saying recently," RHA international officer Bob Duffy commented this week.
But the Freight Transport Association, representing users, sees matters in a very different light. A spokesman confirmed that its policy is to regard the customer as king. "We look for a market environment in which the market sets the rate and the customer pays for it."