Truck figures take nosedive
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THERE are 53,000 fewer commercial vehicles on the roads of Britain than a year ago.
Figures from the Department of Transport show that in 1975 there were 2,105,000 commercial and public service vehicles in the country — that figure had dropped to 2,052,000 at the end of 1976.
And a major part of the drop — 25,000 vehicles — occured in the general haulage vehicles classification, of which 14,000 is accounted for by vehicles over 3 tons unladen.
Only the classes which included vehicles operated by the Crown and those operated by farmers have increased. The Crown is now operating 1,000 vehicles more than the 1975 figure while farmers now use 6,000 more vehicles of all weights than the previous year.
Minibuses have also shown a small growth in the under eight seats market. There are now 34,000 on British roads compared with 32,000 during 1975.
But the numbers of vehicles with over eight seats has marginally declined from 80,000 to 79,000 over the year.
Figures for England alone show that general haulage vehicles have declined by 20,000 — and 9,000 of those vehicles were in the over 3 tons unladen class. In Scotland the haulage vehicle figure dropped by 5,000 and the number of vehicles exempt from paying duty went up by 2,000.
The Welsh picture is the most stable with general haulage only dropping 1,000 vehicles and farmers taking up that 1,000 to keep the figures steady.
In the English regions it is still the South East that has the largest vehicle population — although the Department of Transport has not separated the car and commercial vehicle populations from the total of 5,964 vehicles — treble the figure for the North West, which is the second highest figure.