baths nut s otli in timber haulage
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by Guy Sheppard fety procedures for carrying unprocessed timr are to be rigorously tested over the next two inths following a spate of accidents including a in which an elderly couple died.
The tests, which will cost more than £60,000, Id result in tougher guidelines which would Ike timber haulage uneconomic in some parts he country.
Existing guidelines, drawn up by the undwood Haulage Working Party (F1HWP), have .-ne under intense criticism ever since the couwere killed by timber falling off a truck in April 30 on the A7 in Scotland.
The RHWP repreits contractors, grow and processors; iirman Richard Scott
an internationally xignised testing spelist is due to be Dofnted this week (21May). 'As soon as we re established the ;tilts of the tests we be working on the ie of practice," he Js. "I would hope that 3 modified by the end he year"
The trials have been ayed because of angling over who add pay, but Scott says the Health & Safety Executive and the Department of Transport are contributing, as well as the forestry industry.
Alasdair Ferguson, managing director of Ferguson Transport (Speanbridge) near Fort William, is a forest products specialist who will help choose the company which will carry out the tests. He says the worst scenario for the industry would be a ban on cross-loading, where logs are piled at right-angles to the road on flat-beds.
"The trials have implications for the whole industry, not just hauliers," Ferguson warns. "To be fair, it is something the industry has got to look at and accept."