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BLUNT
• International owner-driver Mick Blunt has been warned that there is a price on his head. "If he values his life he should steer clear of Spain," say other drivers.
Nearly 18 months ago Blunt had a run-in with 30 striking Spanish truckers during the fierce haulage dispute on the Spanish border. He was threatened at knife point, his truck was wrecked, and he lost five months worth of business while it was being repaired.
BURNT OUT
Last month Blunt won almost £17,000 compensation for the attack. He is the first British haulier to be paid, but he now has the threat of violence hanging over him. Blunt believes he has been targeted by the haulier who held a knife up at him and later burnt out his cab during the 12-day hold-up at Irun.
Fearing his attacker may be ganging up with other Spaniards to look out for him, Blunt admits he would prefer to avoid the country, but he is determined not to be intimidated from taking work there. He reckons his four-year-old business, Maltby Transport Services, has suffered enough from Spanish aggression.
The man who threatened him is well-known to the Spanish police, claims Blunt, but they refuse to take action against him. Blunt has even encountered his attacker on a Channel ferry — the ensuing fight resulted in Blunt being questioned by the police.
If he does go back to Spain Blunt says he will avoid spending nights there in his cab: "I would sleep at the border and get in and out of Spain as quickly as I could," he says.
The compensation has enabled Blunt to clear the debts he incurred during the five months his A-reg Mercedes 2028 truck was off the road, but he was surprised to be paid at all: "There is no effective system in place in Europe to get compensation," he says. "The British Government did nothing."
Blunt is a member of small hauliers' trade association Owner Operators (UK), which sent a representative out to Spain ▪ during the dispute and met with the 8 European Parliament's transport committee on his behalf.
His business is back on its feet now,
1, and he does not plan to press for payment for loss of earnings because the Spanish .0 authorities have told him he would be wasting his time — they believe the 8 garage took too long to complete the
repairs.
E Blunt's ordeal began when he was z • returning to Britain from a trip to • southern Spain. The dispute was over a hike in dery prices and loss of subsidies: Spanish hauliers were angry at what they saw as foreign truckers gaining a competitive advantage over them.
As he slowed down at Iron, on the border with France, protesters leapt on to the roof of his cab from an overhead bridge, while others broke into the cab. Once the truck stopped other Spanish truckers started slashing his trailer tyres. As Blunt got out to stop them he was forced back with a knife at his throat: "I heard someone in the background shouting in English for me to get back into the cab if I didn't want to get hurt," he says. "At that moment if I had retaliated I would have gone down and been really badly injured. They were not messing about."
Blunt was forced to park his truck across the road, blocking the route to the Customs area. Nine of his 12 tyres were spiked so that he was stranded until the dispute finished 11 days later.
About 400 trucks were trapped further down the road in a vehicle park off the motorway which links the two countries. Blunt finally managed to limp home with his damaged truck, He was particularly galled that Spanish truck drivers who went on working through the dispute had their tyres punctured in the hold-up but then had jacks put underneath their trucks to prevent the tyres being ruined.
During the first few days of the dispute Blunt and the six other drivers who were forced to block the road were threatened, but not attacked. "They would knock on the cab so that we couldn't get any sleep and felt unrested," says Blunt. "It was terrible that the police didn't do more to protect us — after seven o'clock they all disappeared."
PLAYING GAMES
After a few days he decided to play the Spanish at their own game by staying out drinking all night and sleeping in his cab during the day.
"There were lots of rumours of people being stabbed and beaten up," he says, "but I only saw one or two incidents." There was a scuffle when a French fitter arrived to repair a French truck's tyres, but the Spanish police took no action. A French driver was later run over and killed by accident.
With 20 years of international driving experience under his belt Blunt was well equipped, with enough food to keep him going during the dispute and enough cash for a flight home. But, he says, "you can never be ready for the devastation it causes to your business".
0 by Juliet Parish