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CLASS CONSCIOUS?
Page 5
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• Second-class citizens in a second-class world. We could be talking about black South Africans, or Amazonian Indians, or Russian farmworkers. We're actually talking about British lorry drivers.
You only have to drive along the A roads of Britain to see how HGV drivers are treated. There, among the litter and rubbish, in large laybys you'll see the caravans and the old coaches, the beat-up Transits and campers serving food that defies the imagination, let alone public health regulations. If a driver is lucky he'll be able to find a billet in the handful of decent truckstops scattered around the country. If not it's a cold dark layby listening to the traffic roaring by in the good old cab hotel. Is that how we want drivers to rest after a hard day on the road?
The door to better facilities for drivers could, however, finally be swinging open, if the sudden interest from the likes of BP in truckstops is anything to go by. But let's not kid ourselves. It has nothing to do with philanthropy. The oil giant's marketing experts are wise enough to spot lorry drivers as an excellent source of revenue. Professional drivers undoubtedly deserve a better deal in terms of truckstops, but the current parlous state in services is as much an indictment of the many drivers who are willing to put up with cheap and nasty services as of the providers of such "facilities". Ironically, in some places, there really is an alternative but many drivers still prefer to keep their night-out money firmly in their back pockets — so can they really complain?
Getting the European Commission to raise truck stop standards is a worthy cause but that avenue will hardly bring any rapid change.
Never mind the EC, or the DTp either, local planning authorities should do the right thing. When a planning application comes in for roadside services they should ask: 'What about trucks?" If HGVs aren't catered for then the application should get the thumbs down. After all, if a local authority doesn't take an interest in providing proper HGV services then it can hardly blame the operator when trucks start rumbling into residential areas. The independent truck stops demonstrate that entrepreneurs in the private sector have much to offer drivers and operators. Just as long as the private sector doesn't get greedy, what's good for drivers will be good for the private sector. ...and hopefully vice versa.