Nonsensical regs must not undo double deck benefits
February 1st 2011 There has been much debate about the benefits or otherwise of European legislation but when it comes to the proposal to limit double deck trailers to a height of 4m, the issue seems clear cut.
It is hard to label the proposal controversial because that implies there are arguments to be made on both sides. In fact, you will be hard pressed to find anyone speaking in favour of the 4m limit. If they do exist they are keeping a very low profile. It seems there is no one who actually thinks this will result in environmental and economic benefits for Europe.
I suppose you could make the argument that UK double deck vehicles would run the risk of crashing into those low lying bridges when driving on the continent, but this hardly effects the UK transport network and can be easily worked around.
Even European commentators on online forums ruminating on the topic typically muse that they don’t see any reason why the UK should not be able to set its own height limit. Talk to hauliers, pallet networks and end users in the distribution chain in this country and you hear the same point made, albeit far more vociferously.
The UK industry has made a heavy investment in double deck transport and there is compelling evidence (see the research of Professor Alan McKinnon of Heriot Watt University, for example) that it does a great deal of good by taking trucks off the road. This not only saves money but helps the industry cut its carbon emissions.
Given the investment the UK has made in double deck infrastructure it would be catastrophic to force it to move away from the technology. It would make UK transport less efficient, more polluting and drain cash from companies that can ill afford to see such infrastructure investments count for nought.
Standardisation is a key European mantra and seems to be the driving force here. But surely, standardisation must not be mindless or counterproductive.
This is only a proposal in an early re-draft of the Whole Vehicle Type Approval (WVTA) regulations and there are grounds for hope that once the legislation is examined and tested more thoroughly, it will be amended sensibly.
In the meantime, we must not take this for granted. Frankly, the bigger the fuss made by interested parties, the better. Go to the petitions section at the EU website (just Google EU petitions, it should be the top result), find the submit petition form and use it to outline exactly why you object to the proposal.
Simon Duddy, Editor More articles from Handling & Storage Solutions: | 
