Ministerial praise for the British haulier
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BRITISH hauliers are, on the whole, a fairly well disciplined lot, but overloading is dangerous and must be eliminated, Mr Neil
Carmichael, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Environment, told CM last week. But prospects for higher weights is gloomy.
At Southampton on the first of a series of familiarization visits to British ports, Mr Carmichael was looking at the container facilities, the weighing equipment at the port, and other installations.
Asked if he was in particular taking an interest in preventing overweight foreign vehicles entering the country, he said that overloading in general was a constant feature in the Department's thoughts.
Both British and foreign operators must understand the dangers of overloading vehicles, both gross and axles, and the effect that this could have on road safety.
On .the subject of possible higher gross weights, he admitted that it was possible to increase the gross weight without higher axle weights, but pointed out that the Government was against the larger vehicles which higher gross weights implied.
The concept had been rejected in Brussels and would continue to be so. _