COMMENT
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THE DARK NEW DAWN
66 fter 20 years in the wilderness, this is the day transport policy bursts out into the light of a new dawn." Maybe for you John, but we're still in the dark. It's not that we don't appreciate the stirring rhetoric, or even the intention. It's just that your clarion call seems a touch premature. After waiting so long for your White Paper, road hauliers are no better off. They'll still be facing congestion tomorrow, and the clay after, and the day after the day after, for years to come. But wasn't the White Paper supposed to do something about that now—or did we expect too much? Meanwhile, in reply to the question: "What's the secret of life, the universe and the best artic combination for general freight?" the answer's 41. The problem is, we can't recall asking for a 41-tonner. It's an appalling fudge between the nasty 2+3 40-tonner, and the infinitely more roadfriendly 3+3 44-tanner that was recommended by Armitage back in the eighties. We can understand the logic. Run a 3+3 at 41 tonnes GCW and you can still carry the same freight as a 2+3 40-tanner without getting clobbered for the 800kg or so of the extra axle, which also helps spread the load on the road. But what we can't understand is why the logic wasn't carried through to 44 tonnes. And we've yet to see what the Treasury will do on VED for either the 41tonner or the 40-tanner, when both become legal next January. Don't expect favours for running with an 11.5tonne drive axle. And the Government remains wedded to its escalator on fuel duty. So while John Prescott may talk about "a new deal for Transport", it's the same old deal on diesel for truck operators. If this is a new dawn for transport, we're damned if we can see the light.