FIGURES SNOW WRONG PICTURE • Your report (CM 24-30 August)
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of our publication Basic Road Statistics implies that the British Road Federation is predicting a fall in the number of HGVs on our roads next year. We are not. What we did was to reproduce Government forecasts of future I-IGV numbers, and figures of the number of HGVs actually on the roads.
In September 1988 the Government forecast that in 1990 there would be between 621,000 and 639,000 HGVs on our roads; at the end of the year the Government published figures that showed there were already 648,000 on our roads. The situation by which existing vehicle stock exceeded future forecasts is one which BRF, and others, have criticised over the years. It will be interesting to see what the next Government forecasts show when they are published in a month or so.
The BRF has long held the view that freight traffic will grow and, unless improvements are made to the road network to allow greater efficiency in road haulage operation, the number of goods vehicles on our roads will rise roughly in proportion.
Richard Diment, British Road Federation, London.