Reply With QuoteOriginally Posted by Jimmy the Jock
we are an island, 95% of the goods the uk imports and exports in terms of tonnage are by sea
Maybe that has something to do with it.
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Travelled around a 1000 miles on the French roads last week.
Was very surprised to see zero British lorries carrying all these goods we export to the EU.
If you travel round the UK roads (I do) . You will see around 1 in 8 lorries is foreign.
How do we export our goods, in the boot of foreign cars?
we are an island, 95% of the goods the uk imports and exports in terms of tonnage are by sea
Maybe that has something to do with it.
indeed.
And all these exports that will no longer available to us?
Are they dropped in by helicopter to the EU?
Possibly in the future imported and exported by driverless vehicles
The British ones I saw in France didnt need drivers.
They were non existent.
We are some way away from driver less vehicles.
There will be a lot of British goods which go back in the lorries from the continent which have brought other goods here. I think the issue of a lack of British lorries (if true) is more to do with how many foreign number plates you'd expect to see in the EU compared to just GB plates.
Hope the new business is going well!
when we went to france last year, i remarked the same, saw a few UK cars ( afterall we were doing a fairly well driven tourist route) but never saw 1 UK lorry
my only answer was the UK companies use EU lorry's are they are cheaper ? ? ?, i dont know though
Two other possible points:
1. Diesel is cheaper in continental EU than UK - therefore more EU lorries used as they can deliver cheaper
2. Perhaps the loads are swapped at UK ports to EU rigs with left-hand drive for some reason?
Also, you forgot that we have a strong services sector, and a lot of our exports come from that
are not my point and point 1 the same ? ? ?
I'm not sure banking services, insurance services, management services etc require lorries. Many companies export via ship - a company I once worked for exported everything via containers.
Could be back loading
Exactly this. Balance of trade. There are a surplus of empty continental lorries in the UK which need return export loads. We export over 50% of our product, mainly to Germany & France. All of it goes on European lorries as it costs around 65% of the cost of exporting with a British companies who don't have return loads.
did they parachute drop these containers to their destination?
I always find it hard to turn a ship in the car park of most businesses.
Last edited by Jimmy the Jock; 19-06-16 at 20:04.
Boom, there is the definitive answer.
So.
I will summarise.
We must stay in the EU so the European lorry drivers can take our goods over to the EU?
Unfortunately there are so many coming over here dropping of their goods we cannot afford to compete to deliver our goods into Europe.
Are you being deliberately daft? The company I worked for employed Gerry Thomas haulage to take the goods that were then loaded onto containers that were then shipped to wherever. Those containers were then transported via rail and road by local companies.
It wouldn't make sense to transport the goods by sea then get GJT Haulage to drive over to complete the trip via road.
Leaving the EU fixes this in what way? Maybe the issue is the fuel duty applied by the UK Government?
The thought had struck me after my original answer.
Fuel didn't look particularly cheap in France.
To be fair most of the foreign haulage forms i see here are Eastern European based. Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Czech Republic and Poland are the main ones I see.
we played a game of spotting the country code on the reg plates on the way to france, Hungry, poland and Lithuania were the most popular if my memory serves me correct
Those long drives to eurodisney must fly by
Is the correct answer.
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