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Cloven hoof

31st January 1975
Page 39
Page 39, 31st January 1975 — Cloven hoof
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Which of the following most accurately describes the problem?

FURTHER EVIDENCE of the extent to which hauliers have infiltrated the anti-juggernaut lobby was given in Commercial Motor two weeks ago. In this case the unsuspecting host was the Civic Trust. To the sophisticated reader the cloven hoof is plainly visible towards the end of a document commenting on the Government's plans for lorry routes.

When he sent out his consultation paper the Minister for Transport must have known that all kinds of organizations would take the opportunity of preaching at him. He was not mistaken. The Civic Trust does not avoid dealing with the points he puts forward, but there is no doubt that they are regarded mainly as a peg on which to hang a sermon.

It is very much in the Trust's best back-to-nature tradition. "If local raw materials are used by a factory and goods are consumed locally," the argument goes, "then little transport is involved." The solution to the lorry problem, therefore, could hardly be simpler. "We have to learn to stop moving freight around so much."

In fairness, it is not suggested that the railways should ignore the lesson. New lines and new marshalling yards create as much opposition as newroads. However, the fall in the volume of freight by rail must mean that there is "more capacity on existing lines for an increase before environmental objections reach the level they have already reached with respect to road traffic".

Saintly businessmen?

Any switch from road to rail is commendable. This goes without saying. The manufacturer and the consumer should welcome such a policy "since the more freight that is transferred from road the longer it will be before the growth in road traffic is constrained".

What this appears to mean is that the manufacturer ought to use the railways so as to leave the roads free for his competitors. This argument certainly is unlikely to please any but the most saintly businessman.

With perhaps more ingenuity than conviction, the Civic Trust endeavours to turn inside out the arguments in favour of road haulage. The cost of transport relative to other costs, it complains, "has been steadily dropping, so that it becomes easier to move goods around". This is apparently a bad thing. Steps must accordingly be taken to keep goods where they are by making it more expensive to carry them.

Several suggestions are put forward. There should be an increase in fuel tax (but not in the size of lorries). Limitations on drivers' hours and more stringent safety regulations would help, as well as "not providing additional road space of a kind to encourage the growth of freight traffic".

Fifth column

There is an even easier course of action. All that the Government has to do is compel hauliers to increase their rates by whatever amount is calculated to bring road transport to a halt. The Civic Trust does not go so far as to recommend this, but it is at about this point that the road haulage fifth column takes over.

The main conclusion to which the arguments lead is that "efforts should not be made to determine the optimum size of the lorry fleet that the country can accommodate". The aim should then be not to permit numbers to increase beyond this ceiling.

At first sight this seems on a par with the other amiably offbeat proposals. Closer inspection reveals a new and more sinister influence. The references to optimum numbers and to a ceiling should sound the warning.

For the consequences of the proposal are clear. Regulating machinery would be required to put it into effect. Hauliers would have to prove that their services were necessary, and perhaps face objections• from other 'carriers, including the railways. There would have to be restrictions for operators on own-account. At any rate they should not be allowed to carry for hire or reward except in certain circumstances. The system would therefore require three types of licence, which would very likely be given the letters A, B and C.

If one must travel, back into the past, some hauliers might say, this is as congenial a place to stop as any. Whoever their undercover agent was, he seems to have done a good job.

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