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We're not the enemy!
Page 9
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London's been a busy place this week, with the first of hundreds of the congestion-charging cameras, which will cost our industry millions of pounds a year, being put into place. Add to that the news that Edinburgh's residents—or at least 51% of them— have welcomed tolls for vehides entering the city centre, and it hardly looks like good news for hauliers.
Neither is the news that some councils look set to permit only the very cleanest vehicles, those meeting Euro-3 or 4 emissions standards, into city centres once new Low Emission Zones (LEZs) come into force in four years' time.
Of course everyone living in a city would welcome less congestion and pollution. But at what price? It's all very well charging people to drive into cities when there is an alternative—the train, the tube, or the bus against the car. But how do they think their food, drink, clothes and consumer goods are going to arrive? By horse and cart? Or perhaps in wheelbarrows?
Right now, many councillors see trucks and hauliers as their worst enemy and as one of the main causes of pollution. But it just isn't true. Noone would take a truck into a city centre for the fun of it, and with engine technology constantly developing, trucks are cleaner than they ever have been—and are certainly better than many of the buses running in the proposed LEZs. Rather than treating our industry as a social pariah, councils must realise that their towns and cities depend on trucks to survive. We need exclusion from toll costs and some recognition of the vital role that our industry plays in maintaining all those vibrant city centres.