Industry slams railway bias
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THE latest attack on the heavy vehicle user from the Transport 2000 group has been slammed as "railway propaganda" and "a myriad of distortions and half truths" by both the Road Haulage Association and the Freight Transport Association.
Contained in a new report, A Load On Your Mind, Transport 2000 claims that "Britain is now paying more in real terms for moving less freight than it was 10 years ago."
It also claims that heavy lorries are involved in a "disproportionate" number of accidents involving serious in jury, and that there is "little evidence of any tangible benefit from heavy lorry operations."
But this week RHA spokesmen accused Transport 2000 of ignoring the evidence that consignors "anxious to avoid rail's inevitable transhipment costs and choosing to use lorries' superior quality of service act sensibly and commercially and send 90 per cent of their goods by road."
And the FTA commented that the group was using "a curious logic" which ignored many of the factors taken into account by trade and industry when planning distribution.
It also comments that transport is merely a servant to changes in industrial locations which, says Transport 2000, "have increased the length of the average road freight haul by 41 per cent between 1966 and 1976 and reduced the ability of many firms to use rail or water transport."
RHA points out that if the transfer of goods from road to rail for which it aims actually happens, it would mean that many more lorries would be seen where they were most resented — in the centres of towns where the railheads were situated.
Both associations attack Transport 2000 for its alleged misuse of accident statistics, and the FTA says that figures given in Parliament last week showed that heavy lorries were less likely to be involved in serious and slight accidents than any other vehicles.
And they both agree that any attempt to impose a social tax on a heavy lorry would result merely in increased costs to the housewife when transport costs rose.
Transport 2000 also calls for Government action to stop any further increases in maximum vehicle weights.