UK truckers discuss protests over high fuel prices

IanC

Good for them!!!

They need to declare their rights to consume vast amounts of precious, depleting fossil fuels up and down a tiny island already covered with railroad tracks, delivering loads and loads of cheap, foreign made products to any UK consumer willing to apply for a credit card!

Clearly, their industry is in NO WAY responsible for the utter reliance on said cheap fuel that lead to the high prices in the first place. Furthermore, they are right: the UK government can easily drop the price of fuel down to, say $25/barrel at any time!

Up Truckers!!!

-Ian

Valdemar

Source?
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"Nothing survives. Not your parents. Not your children. Not even stars."
-Pinbacker, Sunshine

VinceG

Twilight · Expert Joined: Mar 02, 2007 Posts: 2768 Location: UK

Blockading refineries and go-slows on motorways won't work this time.

In September 2000, the government got caught in a situation for which it had no plan, and no-one, all the way to the top, dared take the initiative. They were dealing with something they didn't understand, and the instinctive response was to let it play out and capitulate once face-saving terms were provisionally agreed. They said they would look at tax, and sure enough the fuel tax escalator was frozen for 7 years. It was only restarted last month. In the meantime, the real cost of motoring stayed flat and the middle class began to switch to SUVs on the back of cheap credit.

It won't work that way again. The authorities will impound vehicles and remove protesters as they arrive.

One strategy that would offer a balance of impact and legality is a coordinated road transport strike. Fuel would move, but goods would not. If it were to be effective, perishable goods would be gone from supermarket shelves within a week and everything else would follow a week later.

There is a hurdle to overcome: most haulage companies are tiny independents who cannot afford to lose the goodwill of their clients. It is likely to prove insurmountable. But if enough truckers can agree to a national strike, the impact of their misguided gesture would be severe.
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"The American people are watching the numbers climb higher and higher at the pump and they're waiting to see what the Congress will do." - George W Bush

IanC

VinceG,

Not really, but today, it gets me through a slow day at work. It's one of those, "better to laugh than to cry" sort of exercises.

Seriously, though, what is being missed here the the fundamentals about the fossil fuel economy which make the current transportation system untenable. What do English truckers or French fisherman hope to achieve by blockades to protest high fuel costs? Probably about as much as I achieve, raging impotently on a website. Geez, I should get back to work...

-Ian

timbo

They are rightfully angry. When they took on debts of $250k-$400k not a single politician told them we were facing PeakOil and that prices were only going to keep on rising. In fact that their way of life was no longer sustainable.

Its the failure of our so called leadership that most angers me. Let alone the insane obsession we have for running a "Growth" economy in a finite world.

I agree with IanC sometimes its better to laugh than cry.

On my blackest days I like to picture our current leadership dangling, rotting, from the useless bridges over the useless freeways we are still wasting our limited resources on. Or torn to pieces by the mob as the realisation of the enormity of the lie they have been living becomes apparent. And I won't even have to lift a finger or foment any trouble for it to happen.

Starvid

Starvid

Battle_Scarred_Galactico · Intermediate Crude Joined: Apr 07, 2005 Posts: 963

We won't see another '2000'. This type of action is now covered by 'terrorism' laws.
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"One minute I held the key, next the walls were closed on me, and I discovered that my castle stands upon pillars of salt and pillars of sand."

whereagles

It's easy to say trucking days are numbered and truckers should move into a new business. The problem is it ain't easy for people to find decent jobs these days. Especially with diving a truck is all they know how to do....

timbo

Grifter

timbo

AndyK · Coal Joined: Jun 12, 2007 Posts: 8

The UK's rail network, whilst very extensive, is overloaded to breaking point as it is. The reason we don't have more goods hailed by rail is simply that it's pretty damn difficult to schedule in any more runs.

The trains are run down, and the tracks are run down (certainly compared to the rest of Europe). After the UK rail system was nationalised around 1950, freight steadily decreased and many of the old tracks were abandoned and torn up for housing and cycle paths. It will take a huge investment over many years to make the UK's rail system capable of taking a significant load off the trucking industry. That, or a massive decrease in the number of people commuting by train. Given rising petrol prices, that's not likely...