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144 
Get your sums right FTA tells Government
Page 4
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GOVERNMENT lorry cost sums just don't add up, according to the Freight Transport Association.
And it has accused the Government of using distorted arithmetic in a "desperate attempt" to make the figures agree with the desired antilorry answer.
Mr Bob Beckham, the retiring president of the Association (see page 25 of this issue), said at the annual dinner on Monday evening that the use of the so-called social costs argument was almost farcical.
It might just have been acceptable if it offered any incentive to reduce environ mental hardship or if it took into account the social benefits of road transport.
But it did none of these things and its ultimate absurdity was the suggestion that pedestrians ought to pay £50m a year to cover their social costs.
Carrying on with his attack on the Government Green Paper on Transport Policy Mr Beckham said that it should have recognised more positively that the needs of users were paramount.
That was not to say that no regard should be paid to the needs of transport providers or that environmental and social considerations should be ignored.
But it could be that in trying to satisfy all these interests the fundamental purpose of transport could be lost sight of. In the case of freight it was to meet the needs of trade and industry, which in turn existed to satisfy the requirements of the final consumer.
"If we tried to impose a compromise transport policy which lost sight of the customer, and if we strayed too far from the primary purpose of getting goods moved quickly, cheaply and efficiently, then we could only accelerate in the direction of logistical disaster," he said.