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Call for action
Page 28
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john Dee is not the first company to call in administrators this year (C.4/14-20 Nov) and it's not likely to be the last. But it always seems to be the small hauliers that suffer most because it is them that are owed the money and it's them that are among the least likely to get paid (no preferential creditor status for them).
Why can't something be done about this problem? This Government constantly goes on about encouraging small businesses and providing them with an economy in which they can flourish. Well, one of the things they need to flourish is a stable marketplace in which they can be confident they will get paid for work which is extremely hard to win in the first place.
I support the Road Haulage Association's argument that one good step would be to get the Traffic Commissioners to be more strict on the financial standing requirement for an 0-licence.
Bernard Heaton, York.
Bryant's plight The plight of Steve Bryant languishing in a rat-infested, over-crowded, flea bitten place they call prison in Morocco, is nothing short of a disgrace, and one where our Government should hang its head in shame. It's about time they got their fingers out and did something for this man instead of sitting on their backsides, as per usual, drinking tea and full of their own importance.
I know what it is like in one of these prisons—I was in one for only 29 days for something that was no concern of mine. I phoned the Embassy, and all I can say to J Major & Co is this: I can save you millions of pounds every year; shut these bloody places down for what good they are. They are of no help in situations like Bryant's and, apart from that, time and time again it has proved that we don't have the guts to do anything when it comes to foreigners, yet if it is their national in our jail with proof he has done wrong, they demand we release him and, like lapdogs, we open the door and let him out.
What is a driver supposed to be? They ah-eady have us a armaments inspectors,
lawyers, secretaries, engineers, fitters, barristers, ambassadors, etc; now they want us to be drug-sniffers. A driver picks up his trailer from a depot fully loaded, not a clue as to what is on, but if anything is found it's down to the driver.
What sort of nincompoops are we being run by? If all drivers didn't deliver to the goods to the shops for a week in support of John, we just might get the lad home for Christmas to his family where he belongs. For God's sake drivers, for once stick by one of our mates—for who knows, the next guy could be you rotting in a hellhole in barbaric Morocco. H Tickle, Chorley, Lanes.
Blacklist denial
irr Lowe from Blackpool ....Visuggests the Road Haulage Association is intending to blacklist distribution centres which export their inefficiencies to hauliers who are forced to wait several hours before being loaded or unloaded. He does not appear to have read the report; certainly he had not spoken to me about this problem.
We do not and would not want to blacklist problem locations but we hear many complaints of delays, and the run-up to Christmas is bound to see problems get worse. We do however want to something to make the operators of these centres realise that they cannot treat drivers with the contempt that is so often the case.
The RHA must have information about delays---which will be treated totally confidentially—and then we can do something.
G Dunning, RHA Northern Region.
Innocent victim
Why has it taken a hunger strike by jailed driver Steven Bryant for his member of the European Parliament to finally do something about the poor man? Periodically there have been articles in CM about the plight of Bryant and each one has been more pessimistic than the last. The fact that he has always claimed his innocence (how could he have know if there were drugs planted in a load of FROZEN squid?) doesn't seem to matter.
Does it require a hunger strike before a MEP or an MP will get involved? He currently shares a cell with 40 other men, plus a number of rats, without proper sanitary conditions or even his own bed. How in the 1990s is this allowed to happen?
It's about time MN and MEPs spent more time helping the people they are elected to represent—people who are often unable to defend themselves—rather than feeding their fat faces at the respective troughs in Brussels and Westminster. C Murphy, London.