HOT AIR SUSPENSION
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IN "Other than saying air suspension, we can't tell customers what they should be ordering — and we can't even build it until some people make up their mind." That is how one leading manufacturer sums up the state of affairs over the proposed increase in what the Department of Transport coyly calls "certain medium-sized lorries''. For the haulage world it simply means three and four-axle rigids, four-axle artics and drawbars.
So why can't manufacturers tell hauliers how to specify three and four-axle rigids so as to take advantage of the weight increases due to come into effect on 1 January 1993?
The answer is because both the Dip and the Eurocrats are still dithering over what constitutes a "road-friendly" bogie. The manufacturers have put their own proposals forward — but wrangling over axle limits within each member state has stalled the proceedings.
Did anyone mention political pressure? Presumably for UK Transport Ministers a "road-friendly" suspension is one that causes the minimum amount of fuss from the back benches and anti-road transport pressure groups. Something that might better be called hot air suspension. Maybe when the Dutch take over the presidency of the Council of Ministers they can speed things up.
European truck manufacturers have enough engineering firepower to tackle almost any environmental problem — but only when they get a clear lead from the politicians, and preferably sooner, rather than later.