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TIME FOR A COOL HEAD
Page 7
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or some safety experts it was always a matter of when, rather than if, there would be a fire in the Channel Tunnel. It just came sooner than we all expected. Did the safety procedures work? Was the evacuation carried out smoothly? Were lives placed at risk? Only a comprehensive investigation by Eurotunnel will be able to answer those questions but we can't help remembering the concerns voiced by those same safety experts about the likely effectiveness of open-lattice design truck carriages in containing a fire. But for now let's leave the experts to come up with some answers—and recommendations to make sure that it doesn't happen again. Whatever the outcome, it's time for cool reflection.
British truck operators don't normally suffer from on irony deficiency, but we're not so sure about the Road Haulage Association, following the two press releases it issued lost week. The first condemned the Government's response to the recent-all party Select Committee on road transport enforcement, saying: "It's particularly galling to have the issue of impounding unlicensed lorries put on the back burner after the industry had been led to believe ministers were sympathetic." The next announced that former Transport Minister Steven Norris was to take over as director-general of the RHA. It may seem churlish to recall that Norris was the one person at Marsham Street who could have introduced impounding during the past 12 months. According to RE-IA national chairmen Bob McKinnon: "Steven Norris is a proven superb communicator". He'll need to be if the DOT is to be persuaded to adopt impounding—especially after avoiding it for so long, not least while under his ministerial control.