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FREEWAY FIASCO
Page 48
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California legislators want to ban trucks from the freeway — but now one manufacturer is fighting back...
• You cannot have your cake and eat it, one truck manufacturer has been telling Californians who are sick of trucks clogging their overcrowded freeways. Volvo GM is backing a campaign to persuade the public that a proposed rush-hour lorry ban in Los Angeles would lead to empty shelves and higher prices.
Volvo is running newspaper adverts which show shelves with the sign "no bread deliveries till after nine", and warn: "A ban on trucks could clear more than the freeway". They urge voters to speak out against the ban by contacting their state representative, so "you won't have to get your daily bread in the middle of the night".
The campaign is spearheaded by the American and Californian truckers' association and, although other manufacturers have expressed support, only Volvo has published adverts. The public are being misled by politicians anxious to take trucks off the road, says Jon Shepzley, advertising manager at Volvo GM Heavy Truck Corporation. "Trucks represent only 4% of vehicles on the highway," he points out.
Originally, both California state and Los Angeles district governments planned tc ban trucks. California has dropped the idea, but legislators in smog-hit LA are still under pressure to clean the air and clear the roads.
If the ban goes ahead, it could have catastrophic effects, warns Shepzley. A three-hour prohibition on trucks twice a day is likely to cause chaos to shopkeet ers and businesses, and push up rates f hauliers forced to delay delivery times. believes the manufacturer has an obliga tion to do something. One poster lists hundreds of products which Volvo says would rocket in price if a ban was imposed. It would increase hauliers' costs 25%, killing off the industry's efforts to cut prices through just-in-time deliverie and the like. Cars carrying just one per son make up 96% of the rush-hour trail it says, so how can 4% be the problemi In the UK, manufacturers have often shied away from getting involved in poli tics, leaving the likes of the Road Haula Association and the Freight Transport Association to lobby the legislators. Tin FTA in particular has led the opposition the London Lorry Ban, Britain's neares equivalent to the LA move.
But the PTA's Don McIntyre, contra ler of planning and traffic services, insis that manufacturers have backed the FT campaign against the London ban throui the lobby of the Society of Motor Manu facturers and Traders.
Until now the FTA has been reluctan to use press advertising to back its lorr ban and 40-tonne campaigns, but in the face of the London ban and other antitruck moves, it is now considering follo in the path set by Volvo.
U by Murdo Morrison