DISC WORLD
Page 14
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V9'Ith reference to your feature headed "Disc World" (CM14-20 Dec), surely the real issue is not whether we should be charging Continental operators to use our roads—because the answer is clearly yes—but why the government is going to keep the industry waiting while it works out how to do it.
According to CM, it could take up to two years. Imagine telling a customer: "I'm going to put my rates up—but it's going to take up to two years." He'd be laughing. And that's what the foreign operators are doing to us: laughing all the way to the bank.
They get to drive over here with trucks attracting a fraction of the VED we have to pay, and on fuel that's significantly cheaper, too.
And then there are those operators who have clearly discovered the all-toolegitimate loophole of using cheap drivers from the former Communist Bloc countries.
Is it any wonder that the number of foreign trucks operating on British roads has soared? We simply can't compete against them. So far the trade associations seem powerless to stop this invasion; maybe the answer lies with the general public, and the media.
I can't help noticing the increasing number of motorway shunts involving foreign-registered trucks. Perhaps it's just that there are more of them on the road, but It seems to me that they almost always involve clipping a passing car in the middle lane as they pull out to overtake. How well are these trucks covered for insurance? And what about the value of their goods in transit?
Perhaps when enough British motorists are hit by foreign trucks suddenly the tabloids will discover a story in the making. Then who knows what the government might do? Roger Charles, Bristol.