Now RAC slams lorries

22nd September 1972, Page 91

22nd September 1972

Page 91

Page 91, 22nd September 1972 — Now RAC slams lorries

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• The RAC has joined the environmentalist lobby in an attack on heavy goods vehicles. At the opening of the RAC's Anniversary Exhibition in Plymouth, on Tuesday, Mr Phil Drackett, an executive of the Club, said: "The crunch is coming literally. Soon Britain must make a decision between life worth living and an existence deafened, battered and threatened by that Frankenstein monster, the lorry".

Mr Drackett went on to say that, after Britain's entry into the Common Market, more and more giant vehicles would be on our roads and he stated that if France and Holland had their way these vehicles would be so large that they would ruin our quality of life. He observed that between now and 1980 Dutch operators would be able to come and go freely in Britain with 50-ton vehicles.

"At what cost to this country?" he asked. Some of you may not have heard the names Ticehurst, Hailsham, Bridge, Uckfield, Falmer, Ringmer . . . You might call them a roll-call of the fallen. These are just a few of the villages which are being shaken to pieces by heavy container lorries, mainly of Continental origin, at the present time." ,

He entreated everyone to write to MPs and newspapers and sign petitions and he remarked "that a lot of people in this lovely little island of ours are sick and tired of being pushed around".

That the RAC is guilty of "the worst kind of sensationalism in its outburst against lorries" is the opinion of the Freight Transport Association, whose spokesman told CM: "It is absolute rubbish to suggest that 50-ton Dutch lorries will be free to come and go until 1980. On the contrary, the Government has only recently taken powers, under the Foreign Vehicles Act, to enforce a ban on all Continental lorries over 32 tons.

"It is surprising to find the RAC apparently unaware of this fact, as well as making other statements which are totally inaccurate. Perhaps the Club should concentrate in future on talking about cars, where it presumably does know the facts."

The RHA said: "The motoring organizations appear to be competing with one another to see who can make the greatest number of howlers in a single statement. Readers of Commercial Motor hardly need to have explained to them the absurdity of some of Mr Drackett's facts and figures. Presumably, he feels that when everybody else is attacking the heavy lorry, the RAC must jump on the bandwagon".