Truckers' fuel tax protest hits London

by julianw | July 2, 2008 at 09:17 am | 441 views | 3 comments

Two-hundred truck drivers have threatened to bring London to a standstill in a protest for lower taxes on diesel fuel. Escorted by police cars, the trucks drove to Britain's Parliament, where a debate over fuel taxes is currently underway.

Hundreds of truckers drove to Britain's Parliament on Wednesday to protest the rising cost of fuel.

Police closed a section of a highway into the capital to let the trucks gather, then escorted the 200 trucks in convoys of 20 into the center of town. Dozens of protesters on foot gathered outside the Houses of Parliament, waiting to go inside to lobby members of Parliament and holding placards that said "Fair Play on Fuel."

"Business life for us at the moment is hard — very hard," said Michael Edmunds, a trucker from Wiltshire in western England. "It's got to the stage where I'm wondering whether it's all worth carrying on. I'm only a small haulier. We are simply getting swallowed up."

Their protest coincided with a parliamentary debate on the Government's plans to impose higher rate of vehicle excise duty on "gas guzzlers".
According to Transport for London, this kept disruption to other motorists to a minimum although cars were kept off the elevated section of the A40 into the heart of London.

Some drivers parked up and went by foot to attend a rally outside Parliament.

There, Roger King, the chief executive of the Road Haulage Association, called for fuel duty to be the same throughout the European Union.

"If the UK Government does not address this (fuel duty) problem there is going to be precious little of the haulage industry left," he said.

Add a comment Comments (3)

Rachel Nixon
news wanted:

I think this is an important story and would benefit from other NowPublic contributors working on it. I've flagged it as News Wanted and invite others in relevant locations to look for more evidence.

Sumthin' Luv

Protest sign of the times? This photo was taken by me outside Parliament House in London back in 2006. I guess it's message, although pretty clear, is still being ignored by the powers that be....

Sumthin' Luv has contributed a photo to this story.

ToxicMoldExposure
good stuff:

julianw, I like this story. It's good stuff.  We all need to support our truckers across this country and abroad. 

Add a comment

The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.

July 2, 2008 at 09:17 am by julianw, 441 views, 3 comments

closeSign in to NowPublic

is reporting from