Hauliers-hikers match at
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Caxton Hall by Tony Wilding
• A funny thing happened to me on the way home from the office the other night. 1 went to a protest meeting in Caxton Hall, London, organized by the Pedestrians' Association which had the grandiose title of "The Lorry and the Community" but was obviously aimed at knocking the proposal for 44-ton artics.
The trouble with protest meetings is that normally only those who want to protest go. So they boil down to back-slapping events with everyone agreeing how brilliant the other is at having the same views. But not so this time; there was some opposition in the form of a small group of hauliers. It seemed in the beginning that we were in for some fun when a vociferous man in the front row started a bit of heckling and announced himself as "the official spokesman for the RHA". But it didn't really work out this way.
None of the three speakers at the meeting differentiated between 44-ton vehicles and current trucks. In fact "44 tonswas only
mentioned once or twice and the speakers • confined themselves to attacking commer cial vehicles generally.
The first surprise came early on, after the chairman of the Pedestrians' Association had trotted out a few remarkable "statistics" aimed at showing that there had been a vast increase in the number of trucks and that they caused lots of accidents. The "RHA spokesman" suddenly announced that the RHA was not "applying for 44 tons". Obviously shaken, the speaker took this unexpected announcement in his stride.
Most of the audience of 50 or so people listened quietly and with obvious full approval to the attacks on road transport, which consisted largely of describing one or two accidents and losses of load to illustrate the "dangers". There was the inevitable speech saying how much better it would be if there were no goods vehicles and everything went by rail. Most of this was quite illogical but only to be expected when the speaker used terms such as "ugly logic" and deduced, from the proposals to increase gross weight, that haulage was realizing the advantages of moving as much as possible with one man. He came to the rather strange conclusion that the next thing would be flanged steel wheels on iron track—you guessed it, railways.
In the general argy-bargy of contributions from the floor the RHA man had quite a few things to say. 1 could not follow most of it but he did not make much of a case for haulage. His main contribution was that the RHA did not approve of the bad operators, would like the name of any firm whose vehicles were inconsiderately parked and so on. Happily, a second operator restored some of the image to the poor impression of the industry that must have been created, and made some very reasoned comments on the problems facing the industry and the efforts being made to improve vehicle standards.
Most of the other participants kept up the theme of attacks on road transport and about the only constructive point made was by a man from the Society for the Preservation of Rural England—yes, all the "amenity societies" were there. He suggested that 44-ton vehicles should be restricted to specific routes.
True to form, the resolution put to the meeting, expressing opposition to any increase in weight and length of goods vehicles, was passed. But not unanimously and not before one of the more thoughtful "protesters" had suggested that it was completely non-constructive and that a constructive resolution would stand a better chance. No one else agreed. but then at this sort of thing who would expect it?
The final blow to those present who were interested in transport—and there were others besides the RHA—carne when our haulier friend gave what amounted to a vote of thanks from the RHA and made the astonishing statement that the RHA supported the efforts being made by the Pedestrians' Association!
This really put the cap on the evening so far as I was concerned. If any body had been in the slightest way prepared to hear the road transport point of view, statements that there had in recent years been a higher rate of increase in the number of heavy goods vehicles than any other class of vehicle, and that vehicle size had a relationship with accidents, could have been challenged with some force. With regard to the number of road accidents, the latest survey published by the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents shows that, comparing 1959 and 1968 buses and coaches were involved in about 13 per cent fewer accidents and goods vehicles about 3 per cent fewer, whereas car accidents went up by 50 per cent. Talk about making roads safer should then surely start with cars, not with commercials?
It would have been worth pointing out to the "railways' advocate" that instead of trotting out all the old arguments in support of railways, he should have considered the reasons why road transport was preferred—and indeed usually the only practical method. He should have inquired how many householders, for example, were prepared to have their furniture removals carried out by rail. He spoke about congestion in cities and suggested rail containers as the solution, but didn't seem to realize that containers unable to be moved to or from a rail terminal had little value. Goods have to be delivered to factories and shops in built-up areas (they are not yet rail-served!) and congestion cannot be relieved except by better road systems—unless customers collect their containers on wheelbarrows and stick to the pavements.
The impression was that this particular speaker envisaged 44-ton artics being used for shop deliveries. But nobody is asking for this. The big vehicles are for long-distance transport and, more specifically, for moving the 40ft containers for which the railways are eagerly gearing themselves. Container transport is the railway's freight hope for the future, and a road vehicle gross weight limit of at least 40 tons, and possibly 44 tons, is an integral part of this concept.