GOING OFF THE RAILS
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erhaps we're getting older, or wiser, or both. Not so long ago a press release from Transport 2000 would have us foaming at the mouth like mad dogs. Not any more. Even its latest: "Truck-Off! Campaign against Mega Lorries" (see page 7) caused the sort of reaction we normally reserve for badly behoved small children: they've got our attention but we really can't take them seriously. So why aren't we tumbling off the deep end? Simply because we don't intend to legitimise a report which uses statistics prepared by rail-freight company English Welsh & Scottish Railways. If Transport 2000 can't see EWS's commercial agenda then it hardly becomes us to point it out. It was, after all, EWS which greeted the Government's recent increased weights consultation document by claiming: "Up to 20% of our existing business would be put at immediate risk if the Government decides to allow 44-tonne lorries unrestricted access to Britain's roods." So what's EWS really worried about—the environment, or its shareholders? We could go on about the way 12000 has used the classic form of argument known as "Yes but..." (for example: "...the new lorries may not be any more dangerous than current lorries, BUT they will still cause deaths on the roads" or Government has no proposals to change the current limits on lorry dimensions, BUT histori cally increases in weight and size have leap-frogged each other..."). We could refute them BUT, frankly, we're too bored to bother. If Transport 2000 can't see how sterile it's making the transport debate by behaving like the propa gandist sheep in George Orwell's Animal Farm then it shouldn't be surprised if no one takes it seriously—assuming they ever did.