Ammunition to shoot down critics
Page 26
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
JOHN WEINTHAL and his team at the SMMT are once again putting out some splendid press material as a prelude to the Motor Show in October. They have issued special feature articles on commercial vehicles and their operation that go a long, factual way towards shooting down the more vacuous critics of road transport.
They show that despite a drop in the past 10 years of two per cent in the number of commercial vehicles and a 20 per cent cut in daily driving time allowed by law, goods vehicles are doing nearly 12 per cent more work. What is more, operators are to be required to spend at least £320m over the next 10 years just to make lorries more environmentally acceptable. That alone will raise the average price of a vehicle by £500 at 1984 figures. Even now it is not unusual for an operator to specify an extra £2,000 worth of equipment on a vehicle to save other road users from the full effects of their own folly and to make the lorry more socially attractive.
The answer to those who complain that lorries waste fuel is that 38-tonners use no more than 24-tonners did 20 years ago. Moreover, whereas the railways receive £1 billion a year in state subsidies, commercialvehicle taxation alone yielded more than one and a half times the whole country's current expenditure on roads even before this year's Budget raised taxes still further.