Today the superlorry, which is 24ft longer than a bendy bus and weighs merely 60 tone, has been taken to the road for the first time, despite Government warning.
Dick Denby, 74, owner of Lincoln-based haulage company Denby Transport, will risk his license and potentially his liberty by exploiting a legal loophole which he claims allows the super heavy, double-articulated truck to be used on Britain’s roads.
Mr. Denby also claims that 83 ft superlorries are much more fuel efficient than conventional 54 ft, 44 tonne trucks and they can reduce carbon emissions by 16%.
This is backed by a Deparment of Transport study which confirmed that superlorries could reduce carbon dioxide emissions from road haulage as well as reduce the costs of transporting goods.
One comment on “Superlorry taken to the road to challenge size limits”
Yes its a monster but what real difference does its weight and size make. If you have two 44 tonners on the road in close succession its far worse. The fact is that we now live in a country who's leaders are extremist obsessives in the context of modern civilized country when it comes to state control and the endless imposition of draconian rules and regulations. The British government is not concerned about the environment but are determined to use it as an excuse to raise more taxes to pay for their war in Afghanistan and the economic disaster we are in – caused incidentally by the war in Iraq, though they will claim otherwise. So is it not more accurate to say that their real concern is not this vehicle's size but the fact that they haven't accounted for that in terms of road tax banding?
Now while I'm saying all this, if the government was truly concerned about the environment then instead of taxing the £70,000 range rovers and other private cars with big engines at a higher rate,(which achieves nothing as owners of such vehicles are still flocking to buy them) why do they simply not end the production sale and importation of all private cars with engines larger than say 2 litres or cars which do not do a certain number of miles to the gallon. The environment does not negotiate with us. Therefore we have to do what the environment dictates, not the other way around. In other words the economy has to work around the environment.
The answer to this last question is because government agenda is not environment but profit and taxation. If everyone suddenly started driving Smart cars, what do you think would happen to the fuel prices – Up or down? Up of course. Lots of excuses are used for increases in fuel prices but by strange coincidence, as vehicles have been getting more and more efficient so they use less fuel! Less fuel = less revenue. So up go the taxes. I rest my case
JOHN LANASIS
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