Every so often, as a journalist, you come across a genuinely shocking nugget of news. Last week, while reading a Department for Transport report on foreign lorries in the UK, I came across something so staggering I actually read it three or four times to make sure I’d got it right.
Overseas trucks travelled almost 600 million miles on UK roads last year, but how much fuel does each driver buy per trip while he's here? The answer is a ludicrous 10 litres. Just 10 litres! What they do is fill up their massive diesel tanks at Calais or some other European port before they get on the ferry, so they don’t have to pay the sky- high duty at our forecourts.
It means their 40-tonne, multi-axle trucks are thundering up and down our roads, helping to ruin them for the rest of us, but the operators are contributing nothing to their maintenance. It’s no wonder the tarmac is in such a bad state. I spoke to the Freight Transport Association, the UK hauliers’ trade body, who confirmed it was a real problem. “Not only do they avoid contributing to the UK economy at the pumps, they also put domestic transport companies at a massive commercial disadvantage,” said its spokeswoman. She’s proposed putting a limit on the amount of diesel trucks can bring into the UK, forcing them to fill up here. Sounds like a good idea to me.