Farmer or haulier?
Page 30
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IT have been involved directly indirectly in the haulage industry for more than 25 years and have seen the crippling effect of excessive restrictions and controls.
No haulier is against improvements in safety, within practical guidelines, but the death-wish attitude towards the industry sometimes rings of the Juggernaut Syndrome.
The situation is not helped by unrealistic excise duty, not reflecting the level of road improvements, and a fuel tax which appears to be aimed at putting hauliers out of business.
Profit margins are already at a low and I find it difficult to understand the cavalier attitude with regard to the movement of goods and equipment by the farming community.
We have all experienced the chaos caused by combine harvesters and agricultural tractors, not only blocking, but dancing about the roads on tyres which are obviously unsuitable for road use.
To rub salt in the wound, we now have agri tractors pulling bulk tipping trailers, flats with full complement of palleted loads and tankers.
Much of the equipment would appear to be straight out of the Ark.
Are the farmers using this equipment on their land one minute, with red diesel, and then replacing it with road diesel before using the highway?
In this time of EC regulators with equal rights for all, why is a weak industry forced to carry such a burden?
Transport is the lifeblood of the island, and it is time that the Government stopped cutting off the hand that feeds it.
Carl Stephens Carl Stephens Commercials, Grimsby.