STOP GOVERNMENT PLANS FOR LONGER LORRIES

RMT helpline 0800 376 3706 :: july/august 2011 :: RMTnews 11 A campaigning coalition is asking people to lobby their MP to oppose the government’s proposal for seven foot longer HGVs which would be a threat to road safety and the environment. Freight on Rail, backed by the Shadow Secretary of State for Transport, Maria Eagle and a coalition made up of the Campaign for Better Transport, CTC - the national cyclists’ organisation, Friends of the Earth, Living Streets, RoadPeace and Sustrans are warning that the plans could put small hauliers out of business, decimate consumer rail freight growth and lead to more collisions and more road deaths. The government’s claims that road operators will increase their share of goods traffic as a result of introducing longer lorries, despite its stated commitment to increase consumer rail freight which is backed by the public. Consumer rail freight has both grown and increased market share for the eighth consecutive year and now outstrips coal traffic. The government’s own research shows that the introduction of these longer lorries would reduce domestic rail freight growth by two thirds by 2025, and fails to properly address the viability of the remaining traffic on rail. Worse, the analysis goes onto state this reduction as a benefit to the logistics sector, with some 84 per cent of the quoted cost savings associated with longer lorries coming from reduced rail costs. The government’s justification is based on the assumption that longer lorries will result in fewer road trips, but previous increases in length and/or weight have simply resulted in the same amount of lorries on the roads but with lower loads. Government figures show that more than one in four lorries are driving around empty and almost half of lorries are neither constrained by weight or volume of cargo, ie partially loaded, so if they cannot fill existing sized lorries, why will they be able to fill bigger ones? HGVs are already almost four times more likely to be involved in fatal crashes on local roads than cars. Despite this the government claims that that longer lorries would lead to a zero increase in fatalities by assuming that 85 per cent of collisions involving HGVs are unaffected by length. These conclusions are not credible as it is generally acknowledged that collisions are normally caused by a combination of factors. How can a seven foot longer lorry trailer that occupies 17 per cent more road space, acknowledged by the government to have greater tail swings and more susceptibility to cross winds, not increase road crashes. While the big logistics operators tied to supermarket logistics will undoubtedly be able to make use of the extra volume and therefore to increase their efficiency, the bulk of freight operators and users are not big companies or big hauliers, and these will lose out by having to buy and run new longer vehicles for general use, mostly not utilizing the extra capacity. Small and medium sized hauliers who have been publically muted in their concerns about longer trailers for fear of jeopardizing relationships with their customers stand to lose up to £1.8 billion over five years in depreciation costs on their trucks, a figure that the DfT has not even attempted to calculate. • For more details go to www.freightonrail.org.uk STOP GOVERNMENT PLANS FOR LONGER LORRIES Philippa Edmunds of Freight on Rail calls on RMT members to help campaign against government plans to increase the length of lorries by seven foot