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haulage factfile

21st January 1999
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Page 24, 21st January 1999 — haulage factfile
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Which of the following most accurately describes the problem?

EVENTS

• 22 January: The 7th Annual Railways Conference. on European Rail Freight Restructuring for the 21st Century, at the Sheraton Brussels Hotel and Towers. Contact: fax) 0171 931 0228.

• 10 February: University of Huddersfield debate: This house believes that agency drivers are more trouble than lIwy are worth.

Contact: 01484 472499.

• 16-17 February: Conference, Health Effects of Vehicle Emissions, hosted by Energy Logistics International at The Royal Society of Medicine, London. Contact: 01628 671717.

• 24-25 February: Freight Transport Association, Industry's Freight Conference, The Belfry, Warwickshire, Contact: 01892 783688.

• 2-4 March: European Railfreight '99, Arabella Congress Centre, Frankfurt, Germany. Contact: 0171 242 2324.

• 9-10 March: Triangle Management Services' sec ond Home Delivery conference, at the Copthorne Tara Hotel, Kensington, London.

Contact: 01494 678000.

• 9-11 March: Brityrex '99, National Hall, Olympia, London.

Contact: 0181 313 3535.

• 16 March: Brewery Transport Advisory Committee seminar, Logistics 2000, Preparing for tlw Millennium and Beyond, Hanover International Hotel, Daventry. Contact: 01376 551027.

• 23-25 March: The 1999 Commercial Vehicle Show, Halls 2, 3 and 3a of the NEC, Birmingham. Contact: 01634 261262.

• 23-26 March: The 16th International Transport and Logistics Week, Hall 6, ParisNord Villepinte Exhibition Centre.

Contact: 0033 1 475 65200.

BUSINESS MOVES

HS ATEC

• Vehicle parts supplier HS Commercial Spares has acquired specialist trailer parts dealer Alec (Yorks).

The new company will trade as HS Atec; a full range of vehicle and trailer parts are available from branches in Bradford, Castleford, Hull, Malton, Ossett and Sheffield. Contact: 01924 279294.

Leeds groupage

• Norbert Dentres.sangle has moved its northern and Midlands regional groupage offices to a larger site near Leeds offering better storage, parking and cross-docking. Contact: 01484 432 555.

Daily import

• Tilbury-based Uniserve Group is to offer daily groupage import services from southern Germany, working with Uniserve's German agent, Kentner Spedition in Heidenham. The service has a minimum daily guaranteed loading capacity of 100m groupage cargo on the run from Heidenham depot to Uniserve's depots at London (Grays, Essex) and Manchester.

Contact: 01375 856060.

TRAINING

Distance learning

• EP Training Services has developed a "distance learning pack" for the Dangerous Goods Safety Advisers syllabus. The pack includes the services of a personal tutor. EP also offers intensive courses in Surrey, the Midlands and Manchester for all DGS examinations in 1999. Contact: 01372 450800.

PUBLICATIONS

European transport

• The International Road Transport Union has published a brochure Did you know..? listing the facts and figures about the transport of goods by road in Europe. Contact: 0041 22 918 2700.

SERVICES

NFT webs ite

• Distribution firm NET has set up a website offering information about the company's operations, personnel and systems. The site is at www.nft.co.uk.

Contact; 01773 523523.

Poor piggybacks

Aircraft designers always strive to "add lightness". Road vehicle builders have less incentive to do so but new materials and processes have resulted in more efficient and aerodynamic structures.

A trailer might well weigh four tonnes, and a container about the same. To put all this deadweight onto a train appears to negate much of any benefits derived. And running this heavy and un-aerodynamic assembly at high speed over long distances (and, furthermore, to have to spend hundreds of millions of pounds and accept considerable disruption to existing rail services in order to achieve this) seems to me incongruous.

If this is what is meant by an integrated transport system, then I am not surprised that Railtrack appears less than keen on this piggyback proposal (CM 17-30 Dec 1998).

Anthony G Phillips, Salisbury, Wilts.

Age praise

Re your article on age discrimination,crimination, we have a driver who won't thank me for saying is getting on a bit. He is one of the most professional drivers you could ever hope to employ, not only because of his ability to do a good job but because he has the maturity to carry it out in a very level-headed way.

If firms do not employ people on grounds of older age, look what they could be missing...thanks John!

Linda V Frood Alexander M Frood Haulage, Tiptree, Essex.

PS. We also have employed very young drivers, who can also be trustworthy and reliable, but can't be expected to know all the complex ins and outs of the game that comes with experience.

Stowaway security

As an owner-operator travelling to Europe at least once a week, regularly visiting the danger areas where illegal inunigrants are known to enter vehicles, I

have taken steps to ensure the vehicle and load are secure using a TER cord through the trailer straps and a padlock at the back.

In no way can the loads be considered valuable or desirable so the only reason for these security measures is to prevent illegal immigrants entering the vehicle. After each stop visual checks are made to ensure no-one has tampered with the locks.

As a law-abiding citizen it would always have been my intention to notify the police should immigrants have been discovered. However, faced now with the prospect of a £2,000 fine for each immigrant found in a vehicle, I can categorically state that should the same situation arise now despite my security measures, the inunigrants would be released in a quiet location without anyone knowing.

My small business cannot afford a possible £10,000plus fine which is impossible to insure against, and the impounding of the vehicle would cause immediate bankruptcy. The Government is clearly not interested in working with hauliers to solve this problem

While writing to you, may I also point out that several local hauliers and myself are intending to register our vehicles in Belgium in the very near future to save a possible £6,000 per vehicle in road tax (the difference between Belgian tax and the proposed British road tax for a 40-tonne vehicle).

Also, should I ever be desperate enough to buy diesel in the UK, it's only sufficient to get over the Channel into France to save £160 per tankful—approximately £15,000 per vehicle per year.

All this, multiplied by the vast number of hauliers doing likewise, adds up to a huge loss in revenue for the British Government while foreign governments benefit. The British Government talks about encouraging new small businesses yet is doing nothing to help the British haulage industry, which is made up by a vast number of small businesses.

I know this letter echoes the views and actions of most, if not all, UK hauliers. Graham Dixon,

Esprit Europexpress, Rossendale, Law&

Why re-plate?

your roadtest on the 40tonne Foden was very informative (CM 7-13 Jan), as was the note on the new rules (CM 14-20 Jan). As your test showed, it is quite possible to operate at 40 tonnes and stay within the current axle weights, and with road friendly suspension to cause no extra road damage.

But it seems that to run at 40 tonnes and stay within current axle weights we will have to re-plate to an 11,500kg drive axle, and no allowance will be made for RFS. The Government obviously intends to use this as a reason for a Draconian hike in road fund licence.

I am sure that I speak for the majority of small operators who will stay at 38 tonnes, as there will be no increase in revenue for carrying the extra, and indeed most will cube out before reaching the current maximum.

I am sure that the VI's advice to get re-plated now to avoid the rush is just another trap for the unwary.

Derek Moody, Taurus Trucking Woodstock, Oxford


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