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Unite to fight fuel costs
Page 68
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Sandy Bruce, our latest contrib
utor to Logistically speaking, kicks
off with a rant on fuel prices and lack of drivers' facilities.
I'm looking forward to sharing some of my thoughts with other operators in our industry over the coming weeks and months and would be delighted to hear from anyone who wishes to discuss the points I shall be raising.
I started the company in Aberdeen in 1982 with one truck and have steadily built up the business. I now operate 80 vehicles from my head office inAberdeen and depots in Hull and Ford on the south coast.'While we perform a fair amount of full-load work for our key customers,mainly from Scotland, we have concentrated our activities in recent years on part-load and distribution.
For the most part, we can advise our customers:"The freight will be collected on a Sandy Bruce truck and delivered on a Sandy Bruce truck." The testing station at Aberdeen is currently out of commission due to its being refurbished and I have agreed a six-month rental of part of our maintenance facility with the Vehicle and Operator Services Agency. lean tell you now,it's a fantastic feeling to be getting some money from the authorities for once.
We're all aware of the serious effect the cost of fuel is having on the industry — we have experienced an increase of some 18% this year alone.When we consider that 80% of this increase goes directly to the state as tax it annoys me that our industry is not more vocal.
I am particularly disappointed with the representations of the Road Haulage Association and Freight Transport Association on the industry's behaliThe cost of fuel eventually affects all sectors of British industry, but until we are all singing from the same hymn sheet and bringing constant pressure to bear on our MPs and other representatives, I cannot see how we will ever get anywhere.
On a more positive note, we have recently secured a major contract with Chep UK to operate a collection and distribution service in north-east Scotland.We have been working with this for some weeks now and it is doing well. I'm looking forward to developing the relationship as time goes by.
As a final thought for this month, last week I sent a driver on a delivery fromAberdeen to the Midlands for a large international freight forwarder.
As is often the case the freight was urgent and we moved heaven and earth to meet the delivery requirement.The result was that our driver arrived in the Midlands on time but with no driving time left.
Once. unloaded, he was informed that he had to leave the site, despite the fact he was out of hours. You will all be aware of the problems this gave our traffic staff.
For goodness sake, this is the year 2004 —surely proper provision should be made for drivers in this situation? Any driver arriving at our depot in Aberdeen whose time was up would be able to park, have a wash and shower and be able to make a cup of coffee..
I know this is not practical for small companies, but should it not be the standard expected on the sites of all the major operators and transport users? We cannot expect drivers to perform their best if we insist on treating them as second-class citizens. •