Why do people want the bans?
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I FEEL I must reply to the letter in CM 26 July from Stewart Johnson, who claims to be a European driver and is in favour of banning trucks from roads from Friday to Sunday night.
Several points spring to mind: first, he says that the ban in place on the Continent “doesn’t affect them in any way”.
He obviously hasn’t lived there because he would have experienced all the shops and petrol stations (apart from major supermarkets) being closed on a Sunday.
If he really was a European driver, the last thing he would want to do is ban weekend driving as most of us rely on going out on Sunday and coming back on Saturday.
Has he driven on a UK motorway on a Sunday and looked around him at the other trucks on the road? On the way up from the port last week I did a quick survey: 5% were petrol tankers; 5% were Continental trucks running to or from the docks; while the other 90% were supermarket trucks carrying fresh produce to supermarkets.
This is part of the reason there is no ban in Belgium. People like myself, who are out for five to six days, would never get home at the weekend. Could you imagine the tailbacks at the ports on both sides of the Channel on Friday night and Monday morning?
You say in the editors’ note that there’s been many people supporting the ban and not many opposing it – I think there’s a good reason for that. A lot of UK drivers have found themselves working for companies that have to cover weekend shifts and have implemented rolling weeks or four-on, four-off shifts. I’ve been into many restrooms at RDCs and heard them moaning about it, which is why there are so many in favour of a weekend ban.
Tim Ward Kislingbury, Northampton