The right principles
Page 19
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rlphe companies involved in _1 the Bell Line dispute had the right principles (CM 1016 March).
Bell was clearly protecting its profit margins on the back of its haulage contractors. From your article, if the companies involved were running approximately 30 trucks a week: under the new scheme, Bell would save £1,650 a week at the stroke of the pen, no effort required. Bell has already shed the responsibility of having an 0licence, drivers, capital costs for vehicles etc. Not content with that, they now wish to force their rates on any haulier wishing to work for them.
Ray Sal'tiel Furnace, Llanelli.
Standards drop
T am an owner operator with Ione truck running all over Europe. I am sad to say that since the opening up of all the Community last January that the standard of drivers and vehicles has taken a turn for the worst.
A few years ago, the story Jam about to relate would never have happened. This just goes to show the extent of the decline in standards in international haulage. One Thursday last month, having unloaded in Gerona, Spain, I was on my way to reload on Friday morning in Murcia. I stopped at I3enicarlo services on the A7 motorway between Barcelona and Valencia to phone my wife at around 10.15pm. I pulled into a parking space, two slots away from a fellow Englishman. Being as I am a friendly sort of person, I ventured across to speak to the driver, who was sitting in his cab.
After telling him of my day's problems and vice versa he said that as we were going in the same direction we may as well run down together, 1 said OK good idea, but I had a phone call to make first and wanted a coffee. He said he wanted to finish a chapter in his book and asked me where my truck was. I told him and then went off for twenty minutes and made my call.
As! walked back across
the park, I saw that he had gone and I had the awful gut feeling you get after fifteen years on Continental work. I didn't even need to put my key in the lock, I already knew it had been broken into.
Who can you trust if you can't trust a fellow Englishman? I suppose the answer must be no one, unless you have known them for years. So if you get ignored by a driver when you are abroad it's because the English can no longer be trusted by the English. DN Pope
Ashbourne International Transport, Chase); Oxon.