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TAMING THE BEAST
Page 27
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I write with regard to your article on Home Office plans to increase the penalties for overloading ( CM26 Sept-2 Oct).
The Home Office claims that it "consulted widely" but the statement "the government believes overloading isn't taken seriously enough and most of our responses were in favour of this proposal" should be examined further.
It is patently obvious, reading the reported comments of the FTA,RHA and road transport lawyers, that the only consultation that took place was within a government think tank. if overloading is not taken "seriously enough" it is a matter of enforcing the adequate existing penalties.
What we really should be looking for is the hidden agenda. This government (indeed any government) realises the awesome potential the haulage industry has to curtail its stay in power. Think back to the fuel protest. A fraction of one percent of hauliers, a few farmers, and those heroes, the tanker drivers, achieved more in one week than trade organisations had achieved in 10 years.
So what inhibited more hauliers from registering their protest thenP Remember the stone-faced policemen with the video camera, painstakingly picked out by the TV news cameramen and beamed into all our homes—we all saw it and we all got the message.
Please do not let any of us be that naive as to think that all is forgiven and forgotten. The fact remains that the haulage beast is a dangerous animal that could bring down governments and must be restrained by legislative chains, no matter how surreptitiously introduced. One of these was the subject of your article. Erik Hudson, Enk Hudson Transport Services. Southampton.