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Rising costs are killing us
Page 21
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I READ your editorial 'Sweat those assets' (CM, 22 May), and the phrase, "rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic" quickly sprang to mind. I assume you were addressing the minority of hauliers that are running old trucks and haven't yet gone bust.
I always spec my trucks for profit, hut in your piece, you forgot to advise people not to buy a Euro-4 truck if they want to save fuel.
With fuel prices increasing at about 2p per litre per week lately, the pressure is really on.
My trucks are two years old now, and there is nothing on the market to replace them with.
Will the Government pay me £100 per week per truck to run Euro-4 and/or an Essential User Rebate to counter the 28p per litre (.£150-200 per week) price hike since October? I think not. So, according to my calculations, a Euro-4 truck will cost around £300 per week more to run now than a Euro-3 example did just seven months ago.
As a result, we must now go cap-in-hand to our customers.
It's no longer about just running an efficient operation.
Since the 'Best Practice' scheme, anyone who failed to take notice is past saving.
John English Daventry, Via e-mail