• COMMENT SORRENTO • The enormous disparity in the priorities
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of transport politicians, commercial vehicle manufacturers, and operators has been thrown into sharp relief at this week's Road Haulage Association conference in Sorrento.
Three of the principal speakers, Transport Minister, Peter Bottomley; Leyland Trucks UK operations director, Robin Woolcock; and RHA national chairman, Glyn Samuel, seemed rather like three typical M25 drivers — all going in more or less the same direction, but with very different destinations in mind and each with his own individual ideas on the best way of getting there.
In the inside lane is Glyn Samuel. As might be expected from a man with his experience in and dedication to road haulage he knows precisely where he is going and is intent on reaching his destination in an efficient manner.
At Sorrento he hammered away again at two favourite topics, drivers' wages and fuel costs, and there is probably not a haulier in the land who would argue with his priorities.
The same cannot be said of Peter Bottomley. His Sorrento speech must have left many delegates with a Spitting Image-like mind's eye picture of him, in the middle lane of a wet motorway, peering through a cloud of spray in order to see the colour of a lorry driver's skin and to establish whether or not the vehicle's wipers were switched on. It is to be hoped that if Bottomley does actually attempt such action it is while he is being driven, not while driving.
More charitable observers of the transport and political scenes might feel some sympathy for the Transport Minister because, like any Government minister, he could be ordered at any moment to take the next available exit and change his route and destination.
Our outside lane driver is Robin Woolcock. He really needs to keep his wits about him because there are close rivals both in front and behind. Some of those in front look as if they might be pulling away while some behind are flashing their lights to get past.
The hazard ahead that Woolcock warned of in Sorrento is Britain becoming a net importer of trucks, the implication being that Leyland could be forced towards the hard shoulder.
Woolcock says that Leyland's road to recovery is based on a combination of new investment, and new and existing collaborative deals with other manufacturers. Few would argue with the logic of that but the fear must still exist that the Government could so easily turn this road into a dead end, as it did so ineptly with the GM/Leyland Land Rover talks.
It is clear that our metaphorical M25 drivers are little different from the real ones in some of the problems they create for themselves. They do not communicate enough with each other, do not give early enough indications of their intentions, and do not have enough understanding and consideration of each other's limitations.