Flagging up follies
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While hauliers wait to see if Scottish Deputy Traffic Commissioner Richard McFarlane's stance on partial flagging out is supported by the other TCs, two more UK hauliers have been fined in the past fortnight by the French authorities, who have dearly decided that UK operators who run Dutchregistered vehicles under English 0licences are breaking EU laws.
Opinion differs on whether they are within their rights to impose these fines, but whatever you think about the French, the real culprit is the EC directive itself. Rather than clarifying the issues, it has provided what Mike Freeman of the Road Haulage Association describes as "a bit of a grey area".
More like a thick fog, we'd say, and under cover of this fog, it looks like the tide is now turning against the haulier. It seems that you can live, work and pay taxes anywhere you like in Europe, as long as you do all three in the same place. Quite why this should be the case in a unified single market, we're not sure. Could it have something to do with beating the system at its own game, we wonder?
At some point, when this issue is finally clarified one way or the other, someone will have to explain why residents in a single market are treated so disparately in its various regions and fined so vigorously for attempting to capitalise on its legislative failings. We can't wait to hear what they come up with...
• As more and more appeals against fines for illegal stowaways are rejected, everyone involved in international haulage will be impatient for good news from the meeting this week between immigration officials and our trade associations. Let's hope they get it and that this ridiculously unfair situation is finally brought to an end.