'EDITOR'S COMMENT
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CALL IT A DAY
• Remember those ancient "light bulb" jokes? Try this one: How many High Court judges does it take to tell the London Boroughs Transport Committee to stop wasting everybody's time and give up its ridiculous fight to force operators to fit air brake silencers in order to get a London Lorry Ban exemption permit? Last November Lord Justice Watkins told them they weren't entitled to lay down standards of silencing. If it was a matter of regulations, the good judge said, then it was up to the Secretary of State for Transport. That wasn't good enough for the LBTC. It decided to appeal, so this week three High Court judges once again had to spell it out: "It is clear beyond argument that European Community Law precludes any attempt to prevent the use of a vehicle which satisfies the relevant EC regulations." What's more, the Court refused to refer the case directly to the House of Lords for further consideration.
Fair's fair: the LBTC has had a good run in the courts, but it has lost. And any talk of taking the case to the Lords to the European Court is ridiculous. Does the LBTC honestly think the European Court would overturn the Community's own Type Approval procedures? Maybe the LBTC isn't too worried about the legal costs of its folly, but the FTA and RHA will both be pushing hard to recover their costs, which by now amount to "substantial" six-figure sums. You can be sure of one thing — if the LBTC was a trade association rather than a non-elected body funded by poll tax payers (most of whom are doubtless ignorant of its activities) then its members would have been far less gung-ho in spending fees on such a pointless case. The simple fact the LBTC still appears to have missed is this: construction regulations for HGVs are for national and European legislative bodies to formulate — nobody else. Period. The sooner the Department of Transport clarifies C&U regs to say so, the better for everybody. If the LBTC is really prepared to keep on fighting for what many see as a politically spawned lorry ban it might like to reflect on the words of that great socialist Karl Marx: "Hegel says somewhere that 'all great events and personalities in world history reappear in one fashion or another'. He forgot to add: the first time as tragedy, the second as farce."