Italy's truck war hats up
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• Italy faces another crippling strike by the country's mainly self-employed truck drivers following an about-turn by its Government on raising speed limits. These were for motorway maxima to be increased from 80kph (50mph) to 90kph (54mph). The Government originally pledged the higher limits within 10 days after a five-day stoppage by the truckers last month brought widespread disruption, pushed up food prices and created an acute petrol and diesel shortage.
The promise, however, made by Minister of Transport Signorile, has been opposed by Minister of Public Works, Nicolazzi, who has won Government support in vetoing it. Nicolazzi says that there is no chance of speed limits being raised unless the road haulage industry accepts speed limiters in truck engines. He has called for a six-month inquiry into the situation and, if necessary, for speed limits to be cut even further claiming that Italy's road network is 30 years out of date.
The decision marks the Government's intention to be tough with the country's truck drivers, some 80% of whom are small family businesses or owner-drivers. In order to stay competitive some of them have been working excessively long hours, violating speed limits, overloading and tampering with tachographs. Last autumn, after a particular bad series of motorway accident, the Government imposed a motorway ban on HGVs on Sundays and Bank Holidays together with draconian fines for offenders.
The truckers, meanwhile, are to meet to decide whether to call a new strike for the end of March. Their case, however, has not been helped by three major motorway accidents, all on the same day, on the Rome to Naples stretch. The first happened at dawn when a truck driver was killed instantly after his vehicle crashed through the barrier and collided head on with another truck on the opposite carriageway, seriously injuring its two occupants. The road was jammed for five hours.
In the second accident a truck plunged from a bridge on to the motorway. Luckily that particular section was closed for repairs otherwise results would have been catastrophic. The third accident was a multiple pile-up caused by fast traffic failing to stop in time to avoid vehicles that had slowed down because of the bridge incident.