BAN THE BAN
Page 5
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• At last the road transport industry has stood up and said "No". It is heartening to see a group of hauliers who are prepared to defy the increasingly bizarre antics of the London lorry ban administrators. If they pursue their case property, it could be the beginning of the end of the ban.
The trade union movement has always maintained that bad laws should be defied, and the principle that the operators, backed by the Freight Transport Association, are fighting for is clearly worthy of the support of the entire industry. If a haulier's vehicle meets construction and use regulation requirements it is a legal vehicle. It is absurd and dangerous to let an ill-informed, politically-motivated group like the LBTC arbitrarily decide that the same vehicle is illegal on their streets. They seem to be acting ultra vires, or beyond the scope of their powers in normal legal terms. In layman's terms, they are interfering in something they do not understand, without any right to do so.
Britain's trucks pay their way through taxation, and they undoubtedly pay far more than they should when it comes to contributing to the nation's road fund. They have every right to use the roads they subsidise so heavily, and they do not deserve to be banned indiscriminately. Plans to require trucks to fit things like air brake exhaust silencers represent a crazy escalation of an already unfair system.
The operators in revolt have to be supported, or the FTA's chilling prediction that any "individual local authority throughout Europe could be free to introduce their own rules regarding vehicle design" could become reality. Imagine the chaos if we allow that to happen: Turin might require every HGV entering the city to have an exhaust stack made out of yellow aluminium in the shape of a daffodil . . Stuttgart could demand pink sidewalls on trailer tyres — the LBTC truck design requirements have to be crushed, once and for all. It is no laughing matter. Fight for your rights, or lose them. 1