FORCES DARKN OF ESS
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Concessions to farmers, calls for 40 tonners and warnings of higher oil prices were but some of the topics discussed by the tipper men.
I Fanners, oil sheiks and irocrats emerged from this ar's Tipcon conference as e forces of darkness which reaten to ruin hauliers' pes of fortune.
Farmers were not even on e agenda, but like the Poor d the Ministry men they are vays with us, and the mere ention of possible new ncessions to help them espe drivers' hours rules was Lough to reopen deep )unds.
It was Helen Jenkinson, mn the EEC's Transport rectorate, who stepped unittingly into the agricultural lagrnire when she said the !,,,v EEC drivers' hours rules ed not apply to businesses igaged primarily in non-transa-t work and whose vehicles n within a 50km radius of eir base.
She was really trying to exam the detail of what the new les — effective from Septaber 29 — will mean and how they were arrived at; but the tipper operators had more basic worries.
"Farmers have an open door to haulage," complained one who spoke of a fanner carrying coal on F-licences; Tipcon chairman Roger Hobby referred to farm tractors hauling 20 tonne gross loads on trailers: and Anne Preston, chair of the RHA's long distance functional group, complained that Britain's transport industry negotiators — the Freight Transport Association on behalf of it and the RI-IA — had not done enough for them.
Poor Jenkinson. She could only say that the problems caused by "farmer hauliers" — presumably a breed apart from gentleman farmers — had not been raised in Brussels during the negotiations on the new rules, and that the agricultural lobby had impressed the EEC Commission about its transport problems.
She assured them that the concession — which is at the discretion of the UK Department of Transport — is not intended to help farmers carrying coal and advised them to take up the matter with Marsharn Street at the earliest opportunity. "If it proves to be a real problem, write officially to the Commission in detail," she added.
It was a refugee from Marsham Street, the ubiquitous Reg Dawson, retired head of road freight at the Department of Transport and now one of the best known freelance journalists in the road transport business, who struck the next vein of gut feeling running through the Tipcon delegates.
He brought the convention the confident prediction that, regardless of what transport and environmental lobbyists here may think, 40 tonne lorries will be legalised in Britain after the next general election. Nicholas Ridley's claim that 40-tonners would fall through our weak bridges into the rivers (CM. May 3) is "one of the biggest pieces of Ministerial nonsense I have ever read", opined Dawson who said there is no shortage of illegally-laden trucks already running at that weight (and more) in Britain today.
Weak bridges were not the reason why Sir Arthur Armitage's 1980 proposals for 40 and 44-tonners were dropped, and Dawson sees a chain of events emerging by which stronger-than-politically-comfortable bridges, pressure from European hauliers and governments will take Britain to the European Court over the matter.
Meanwhile, Dawson's message to the RI-IA was simple. Keep quiet on the subject and relax.
The ETA's forthcoming campaign for 40-tonners — on ice while EEC ministers resolve their differences on drive axle weight limits — would have been a "prize example of Political ineptitude" had it been started now. Because it shows that hauliers' customers favour heavier weights because of cost advantages to them, Dawson warned hauliers that they must tell the public that they can have 40-tonners only at the right price.
For John Myers, the RHA's tipping service chairman, it was all too much. "It will create more instability in the market," he said with deliberate ambiguity. The market would become unstable and an increase in numbers of tipping trailers would make the vehicles less stable. "Manufacturers will benefit because we will have to buy new vehicles."
Another said he was "appalled" that any haulier would not want 40-tonners. "I do and the vast majority do," he claimed. That was enough to prompt action and a Tipcon wart, Preston haulier Dr Clive Carefoot, called for a show of hands. The result was a tie, so we still do not know the answer.
We do know that Peter Robshaw, a magistrate, believes that lorries are a vital component of a modern society without which our inner cities would fester, that they are here to stay, and that they contribute to our rising quality of life.
Nothing odd about that except that the same Peter Robshaw is a senior executive of the Civic Trust, the environmental group which did more than most to delay the introduction of heavier lorries in the Seventies.
He did extol the virtues of by-passes and commended to delegates the lorry management studies being conducted at the Trust's behest and which are seen as a means of finding civilised and workable solutions to the problems of lorries in sensitive areas.
If Robshaw struck some as a potential enemy in the camp, there probably were more who thought Denis Healey, ex-Chancellor and now Labour's Shadow Foreign Secretary, an unlikely speaker at a gathering of uncompromisingly free enterprise businessmen.
Healey seemed to as well, and commented that from his stance, a Tipping Convention sounded like an international agreement to regulate service charges. He was, in fact, stepping into the customary slot occupied in previous years by such statesmen as Harold Wilson, George Brown and Edward Heath and retired trades union leaders like Joe Gormley and Hugh Scanlon.
He elevated the proceedings on to an Olympian economic plain by chronicling the decline in our industrial base and — despite a claim that he would steer clear of party politics — blamed the disasters on the present Government's "sado-monetarism" which has already cut research and development, training and investment for good.
"Most British firms are tenified of shadowy predators who roam the stratosphere — like the Hanson Trust — so they do not tackle their real problems," Healey averred.
There is a way out, he believes, if we follow the German and Japanese example by spending more on R&D and training and if the Government invests in roads, railways and ports. He also detects a more realistic policy being adopted by such trades unions as the 'Transport and General Workers, the General, Municipal and Boilermakers, and the engineers.
Another Olympian view came from Bart Collins, editor of Petroleum Times, who introduced the third of the triumvirate of forces of darkness. He warned that the day of the Opec sheiks wiU return and that hauliers cannot expect to enjoy today's cheap dery prices 10 years hence.
Today's fall in prices — masked by the high proportion of tax collected by governments — is the result of Opec trying to regain market share from the new oilfields like the North Sea, Canada and the Gulf of Mexico.
The oil companies, which dictated the market until the shieks took control in 1973, are also bending backwards to provide customers with better service and keener prices. "They want your business," he said, because they need to keep their refinery capacity intact. This will change in 10 years when we are compelled to go back to Opec — controller of two thirds of the world's crud( oil — for our dery supplies and prices harden.
Added to that, Collins predicted that the tax advantage in favour of dery will disappear as it is used in more cars; environmental pressure is taking sulphur content out o dery and adding to its cost; an the cetane number (ignition level) of dery is likely to fall from 50 to 48 and increase operating costs.
"I cannot leave you with the thought that the current low prices will last," he said. That gave hauliers a message calculated to upset the digestion of their Tipcon banquet.
For the RHA's new national chairman, Glyn Samuel, the dire warnings added spice to his call to arms. RHA member are too complacent, he argued and warned that it is better "not to let the fire start than t( put it out after it has started".
It must fight "loony" environmental proposals from fringe organisations, beware hire or reward hauliers' position being eroded by the rise of contract hire and leasing, and although it should cooperate with the FTA, Samuel wants no truck with a merger of the two associations.
He also wants more members in the RHA and more objections to be lodged against licence applications by unsatisfactory operators.
His parting call — "For God's sake do get off your backsides and du something to help yourselves" — was a fitting final line for a conference laden with thoughts of doom and disaster.
• by Alan Millar