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One of the reasons Government has constantly increased haulage taxes was to try to encourage efficient use of the roads and minimise the detrimental effects of heavy vehicles on the environment.
Judging by the hauliers' reaction, the policy is proving successful.
Hauliers are claiming, exaggerating would be more appropriate, that 26,000 jobs will be lost because of excessive taxation.
Logically, they must be suggesting that the numbers of vehicles will be dramatically reduced.
Either because they will become that much more efficient, thereby reducing the number of the lorries on the roads,
Or that there will be a shortage of haulage,
Or there will be enormously increased foreign competition caused by non-UK vehicles and drivers coming in to undertake domestic work.
If it is the first, the policy is working to the benefit of the environment.
If it is a genuine shortage, haulage rates will rise thereby halting the reduction in capacity.
In reality, we can be sure that there will be no shortage of haulage capacity and the oft-quoted sceptre of "foreign" competition is a mirage.
There is some slight competition between UK and non-UK hauliers, which in theory is influenced by the road taxes only not fuel tax, but this occurs over a total international journey and not just the UK section.
In international haulage, the real competition is between road, rail, air and sea routes.
If rail or sea win, the environment gains.
Air and road transport are necessary, but unkind to the environment.
The day of the "Yorkie Bar" image is over. When our kids cough from asthma, bigger issues are at stake than the obsessions of a single sector of the transport industry.
You can't blame the hauliers for objecting to collecting taxes for the government. We all hate that, but to suggest that massive job losses are imminent, because of tax levels, is nonsense.
Shipping is close to haulage as a competitor to international haulage and as a major customer of the domestic sector.
If shipping should be tempted to lobby on the trucking companies' behalf, they should ask themselves some questions:
Do they really want to come out supporting a badly financed, undisciplined and mismanaged industry?
Do they expect to receive the benefits of any reduction in taxation in reduced rates?
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