Tuesday 13th July 2004

M6: Hauliers Attack Govt

Truckers call for another lane on the M6

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Figures published as part of a report by the Highways Agency show that HGV traffic on the existing M6 through the West Midlands has actually increased since the opening of the M6 Toll road.

Road Haulage Association Chief Executive, Roger King commented: "The toll rates are too high for HGV's, so it comes as no surprise to me that the existing M6 has seen an increase in commercial traffic. I am not aware of any of the RHA's members regularly using the toll road, which is an enormous shame, as it was built to serve such a purpose"

The question the Road Haulage Association would like the Transport Secretary, Alistair Darling, to respond to is why is he now proposing the building of a further section of the M6 Toll northwards towards Manchester, when the existing tolled road is clearly not fulfilling its expectations.

"There is not a shred of evidence that hauliers would use this new road, so why has the government come up with this proposal? Unkind people might think this is a formula for delay, when what we desperately need is an extra lane on the M6 straight away" stated Roger King.

[anonymous-user]

Apart from making the eventual queues of static traffic somewhat shorter, what exactly will an additional lane on this section of motorway achieve?

I frequently drive from London to Carlisle and I would say tht the section of M6 between Birmingham and Manchester is the worst I know of for complete lack of lane discipline.

So another lane will just be another load of tarmac sitting there doing nothing as people fly along in the rightmost lanes.

[mrwomble]

LexSport said:

So another lane will just be another load of tarmac sitting there doing nothing as people fly along in the rightmost lanes.

ITYM 'crawl along'. HTH.

Couldn't agree more, by the way. Build two separate networks, one for freight, one for passengers. Tell you what, to make things easier we could put guide rails down on the freight network. Then couple all the lorries up and just have one driver. Hey, we could call it a train!

[D-Angle]

mrwomble said:

Build two separate networks, one for freight, one for passengers. Tell you what, to make things easier we could put guide rails down on the freight network. Then couple all the lorries up and just have one driver. Hey, we could call it a train!

Careful, they might nick your idea. Apparently someone at Network Rail recently piped up and said "Hey, what if we had just one single body for runing all the trains, that ran the tracks and stations as well?" Crikey Einstein, what a concept...

[free spirit]

Convince the motoring public it IS safe and legal to drive it the empty lanes to your right on motorways?
Or allow undertaking to the right or left (USA style)?

[towman]

mrwomble said:

Build two separate networks, one for freight, one for passengers. Tell you what, to make things easier we could put guide rails down on the freight network. Then couple all the lorries up and just have one driver. Hey, we could call it a train!

Better idea - use the two networks, but get all the people out of their cars and into a single box (lets call it a "carriage"). Then we could couple all the carriages together and using the same one driver principal, get all the little boxes off the road and allow the truckies to do a days work without the hassle of avoiding numpties!

Steve