Trunk calls...
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AN FTA survey of a 37 1/2-mile stretch of the A21 trunk road from Hastings to the Greater London boundary reveals ludicrously inadequate facilities for lorry drivers. It would not be difficult to pinpoint many other stretches of road, from Land' End to John o' Groats, at which similar criticisms 30 could be levelled.
Whether the FTA is the proper body to undertake such investigations is another matter. Why has the TGWU not asked its lorry driver members for chapter and verse on the shortcomings of roadside facilities? Perhaps the lorry drivers' trade unions have tired of crying on the shoulders of successive Transport Ministers.
Even lay-bys and telephones cost a lot of monei to provide. Accommodation and fuelling facilities cannot be endlessly duplicated; if they cease to be commercial, their operators go bust.
We shall get the standard of roadside amenity urged by the FTA when we are prepared, as a community, to pay for it. It may happen one day, but in the long run, we are all dead. . .