• COMMENT SECOND-CLASS CITIZENS
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• Why should anyone care whether or not truck drivers get a fair deal? Why should a nice new motorway service area cater for greasy demons when it can fill its restaurants with clean, smiling car and coach passengers? Why should Trusthouse Forte spend millions building showers and cafes for truck drivers when the grotty old transport caff up the road does a better job, for half the price?
The answer is simple: truck drivers are human beings, believe it or not, and they do not deserve to be treated like second-class citizens. Our report this week on the South Mimms M25 service station is an horrific tale, and it demonstrates the way in which Britain's professional drivers are being hounded from pillar to post.
The derelict forecourt in which the South Mimms drivers are being forced to park is adjacent to a former transport cafe. It has closed, presumably before it fell apart, judging from the building's dilapidated exterior. We were told several times during our investigations this week that it is lorry drivers who want separate facilities, but the excuse rang hollow. Walk round the South Minims lorry park for half an hour and ask the furious drivers whether they prefer being pushed out of sight. The alternative facilities there, as elsewhere, are non-existent, In more enlightened places like continental Europe, and the United States, truck drivers enjoy highly professional, good-value services which have reputations so enviable the motoring public want to use them too.
Yet back in Britain, the problem is getting worse all the time. In 1984, the County Surveyors Society published a report emphasising the total inadequacy of facilities on our main non-motorway roads, and called for a major Government initiative. Nothing has been done of course, and the ever-competent Department of Transport is now letting the Government veto roadside signs telling drivers rest facilities are at hand, according to the Freight Transport Association. Why?
Things will happen only when Britain's drivers get angry enough to take action. The TGWU is leading the rally call. Their cause deserves all the support you can lend it.