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II COMMENT COLD COMFORT

26th April 1986, Page 3
26th April 1986
Page 3
Page 3, 26th April 1986 — II COMMENT COLD COMFORT
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Which of the following most accurately describes the problem?

• Yet again, it appears that the Government is going to saddle the British haulage industry with an unsatisfactory compromise. After its triumphs of illogical action over lorry weights, drivers' hours, National Bus privatisation and the rest, it is now going to have a go at making a pig's ear of refrigerated transport.

The problem with refrigerated transport at the moment is that it is very difficult (the less-restrained would say impossible) to build a reefer body which combines double standard pallet width, adequate internal air circulation and proper insulation within the present overall vehicle width limit of 2.5 metres.

Faced with overwhelming evidence that this is the case, the Government, through the Department of Transport, has proposed an increase in the legal width for reefers. So far, so good. As the European standard for such things seems to be settling at 2.6 metres, it would be expected that the DTp would propose 2.6 metres for Britain. That would mean that the same trailer could be used legally in Britain as could be used legally elsewhere, so manufacturers would not have to make, and hauliers operate, trailers to two different standards. Common standards on width would mean that common standards on insulation and other constructional factors could be applied.

The DTp has proposed, however, that Britain should adopt a compromise width of 2.55 metres — equal to that which France and Belgium allow at the moment, but 5cm less than France will probably allow shortly and Holland already allows.

Furthermore, although the proposed regulations allow for some long-overdue harmonisation with Europe on trailer lengths and axle spacings (for international haulage only), the width change would apply only to refrigerated bodies. We would then be left with the ludicrous situation that, for reasons of safety, traffic congestion or whatever, it is still only acceptable to have vehicles of 2.5m overall width — except for reefers which could be 5cm wider.

It would be churlish indeed to try to deny the refrigerated transport sector its urgently needed extra width, but it would also be negligent not to ask why we should not have common width regulations for all heavy vehicles, and why we should not have the same weight, length and axle-spacing regulations for national work as for international work.

Even that illogical 5cm width increase would give the average bulk trailer more than an extra cubic metre of capacity; the 10cm which would take the width to 2.6 metres would give some 2.5m3 extra capacity which no transporter of furniture or styrofoam would object to. . . Harmonised trailer lengths would allow British hauliers the extra two half-pallets which Continental hauliers use to such effect on high-bulk, low-weight work.

Closer axle spacing on 22.5-tonne bogies would likewise harmonise manufacturing and operating standards, but also cut down on tyre scrub (and therefore road damage) at very little risk of increased damage from direct downward loading.

Perhaps, somewhere in the DTp, there's an engineer, adviser or civil servant who can prove that on all these counts the DTp is right where the rest of Eruope is wrong. Perhaps there is a politician who can prove that the population of Britain, without being asked, is fundamentally opposed to improvements in the efficiency of refrigerated transport. Perhaps there is a survey somewhere which proves conclusively that there are points on the road network where a 2.55 metre-wide reefer can pass but a 2.55 metrewide curtainsider will not. Perhaps somebody has done a survey which proves that there are places where a 12.5 metre-long, 2.6 metre-wide Dutch trailer will fit where a 12.5 metre-long, 2.6 metre-wide British one would not. Perhaps the DTp is sitting on the breeding instructions for a pig with wings. . .

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Organisations: Department of Transport

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