No hurry on lorry routes
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Assuming that the Minister for Transport, Mr Fred Mulley, now has all the replies to his consultation paper, on heavy lorry routes, there will still be a need for further discussions, and another two years before the date by which local authoritiei in England and Wales are to publish their proposals. The impression so far is one of extreme caution by all the interests consulted, except those that express support for general concepts such as the environment and the quality of life and do not have to concern themselves with the practical issues.
They have seized on the suggestion in the paper about labelling vehicles with a description of their type, or their loads, or even their points of departure and destination. Mr Mulley, one may suspect, has received plans for all kinds of letter combinations and colour charts designed to match operators with the routes they will be obliged to take. The enthusiastic inventors are no doubt unaware that more notice would be taken of the symbols by hijackers than by the already overburdened forces of law and order.
On this point in particular the road transport associations are not in complete agreement with each other. The Road Haulage Association some time ago coined the title of freightways for the network of routes that the Government was hoping to delineate. The suggestion now is that the letter F or a suitable colour, should be used for identification.
The Freight Transport Association has a different opinion. Additional symbols are not necessary, it says, to distinguish between vehicles. There are enough constructional or marking features already.
On the basic issues operators are generally of one mind. To dam up or fragment the flow of traffic at one point, either by an absolute ban or by compulsory transhipment and division of loads, merely shifts the problem somewhere else and may make the solution more difficult.
The demands of trade and industry depend upon many factors, including the location of factories and business premises, the import and export trade, and the freedom to find and exploit the best markets. Unless these factors are changed, not much can be done to improve upon, the present use of the road system, except possibly in a few places where lorries use minor roads for some comparatively trivial saving of time.
Generally speaking, the driver will — almost by a natural law find the route that gives him the easier ride and for this reason causes the least inconvenience to the public as well as to him. If the level of annoyance is still high, the remedy lies in providing a better route either a new or improved road, or a bypass rather than hoping that the nuisance will disappear by ordering it to turn to the right or to the left, or to divide itself into smaller parts, or to move to the railways.
It is possible that this is just the kind of reaction for which the Minister was hoping. In his consultation paper he was careful to point out the difficulties latent in the Heavy Commercial _Vehicles (Controls and Regulations) Act 1973. There is also recognition of the lack of information about the extent of the problem. Surveys of actual lorry movements are being made as part of the Department's reasearch programme; and it is as well, as the paper admits, to be clear about the environmental damage "which lorries actually do and which lorry routes are intended to alleviate."
To the list of objectionable features ascribed to the lorry, the paper adds "a more generalised hostility on the part of the public to large lorries in places where they think they should not be." The hostility, of course, is not always generalized. There are certain places, possibly few in number, although considerable in influence, where the campaign against the lorry is particularly strong. The impression at times is that .the volume of protest will be reduced by half once a bypass relieves the village of Bridge in Kent.
Fresh illustrations of the harm causcd by lorries may not be as easy to find as some people believe. The age of some of the vehicles in the picture albums of the environmentalists is proof enough that the photographs must have been taken
many years ago. by Janus