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Few regular CM readers are likely to fall for the bland conclusions — unsupported by facts — drawn by your correspondent, H. T. Harvey of Transport 2000. Even so his remarks cannot be allowed to pass without comment.
He claims most people do not object to the lorry or road haulage, but are against the "juggernaut" and -cowboy antics." Both these terms he carefully avoids defining — a standard smear tactic. We note he wants a reduction in gross vehicle weight and more people driving smaller lorries over shorter distances and working shorter hours. How small? How short a distance (the average now is 36 miles)? And how much shorter hours?
All this, we are told, would reduce unemployment and benefit society at the same time. In the short term this might be true, but over the longer term the vicious kick it would give inflation, plus the lack of export competitiveness, would mean increased unemployment, and not just among drivers.
How Mr Harvey reconciles all these extra 'vehicles with his main avowed aim of fighting "for a reduction in the pollution and waste of natural resources which are endemic in road transport," I just do not understand. Using three vhicles to do the work of one will require more than three times the energy.
Why too is the bus, by contrast, so-beloved of Mr Harvey? It, like the lorry, consumes oil, emits smoke, and makes a noise. In terms of size it is often larger than the majority of vehicles used on urban distribution. And it operates over some long trunk distances. Perhaps it is because its loads are somewhat more vocal than those of the goods vehicle and would•complain at compulsory 'travel by train.
Finally Mr Harvey attempts to throw off the rail union label by enumerating the diversity of membership in those unions. How many of those members realise that they are supporting Transport 2000 and understand its aims?
J. M. GUTTRIDGE, Chief Information Officer, FTA, Tunbridge Wells.