Hundreds of lorries were parked up on one of the busiest roads into Central London today as drivers took part in a rally against rising fuel prices.

The hauliers came to a halt on a specially closed section of the A40 in the west of the city. Sounding their horns and carrying placards, the truck drivers called for the Government to cut tax on diesel in a bid to ease the impact of spiralling global oil prices.

Shortly before 2pm a delegation arrived at Downing Street, where they handed over a letter calling for a tax rebate for “essential users” in the haulage industry.

The letter said: “We are not faceless multinational companies. We are small and medium family companies built up over generations with hard work and determination. This situation is a crisis. Our colleagues are being driven to despair and bankruptcy on a daily basis.”

With average prices for a litre of unleaded petrol and diesel now about 114p and 126p respectively, it is not just hauliers who are feeling the strain – something that Gordon Brown acknowledged after Thursday’s by-election defeat in Crewe and Nantwich.

Organisers of today’s protest said that the rocketing price of crude oil, which reached $135 (£68) a barrel last week, had created an “urgent, immediate crisis” in the road transport industry that could soon begin costing large numbers of jobs.

After parking their lorries on the A40, hauliers started gathering at Marble Arch from 11am and by 12.30pm there was a crowd of several hundred. A banner read “Dying for a rebate” while others held signs saying “Brown out”.

Organisers were hoping that as many as 600 to 1,000 lorries would eventually line up along the West London flyover, which was due to be closed eastbound until 3pm today between White City and Edgware Road.

Transport for London estimated that 250 to 300 lorries had so far parked on the road. A spokeswoman said that a diversion along the West Coast route and along Holland Park Road was busy but that there was no significant congestion in the area.

Earlier, a convoy of around 90 hauliers had set off from the Medway Services on the A2 in Kent. It was thought that about 150 lorries travelled in today from Essex and about 100 from Bedfordshire, with truckers also expected from many other parts of the country.

“This is not just a few angry hauliers,” said Peter Carroll, a spokesman for the lobby group Transaction 2007. “This is a whole industry saying you are going to kill us and you have got the power to stop it.”

Mr Carroll, who runs Seymour Transport in Maidstone, Kent, gave warning that some operators in the haulage industry could return to the blockades that brought chaos in 2000 unless the Government takes rapid action to help them to cope with rising costs. “We don’t want to see a return to 2000 but it is possible because people are being brought to desperation,” he said.

Mr Carroll said that his company’s fuel bill had risen by £40,000 a month since last October and other companies were suffering even more. Their problems had been aggravated by competition from foreign lorries which arrive in Britain “with tanks full of cheaper fuel”.

According to figures from the Department for Transport last week, the number of foreign-registered goods vehicles entering Britain reached a record 1.7 million last year.

Chris Lewis, 62, an independent haulier from Oswestry in Shropshire, said British hauliers needed a rebate to put them on “a level playing field with Europe”. He said that if hauliers or the industry decided to take direct action there would be no need for blockades. “We don’t need to do anything except park the trucks up at home and take a week off [for people to notice].”

The AA estimated that the average Bank Holiday car journey cost the nation’s drivers £110 million more this year than last. Last week Edmund King, its president, wrote to Alistair Darling, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, asking him to delay still further the 2p per litre fuel duty increase, already postponed from April to October. He said: “Prices look like they will stay high for the medium term so we are saying to the Chancellor that he should forget any idea of adding to fuel taxes in October.”

A Treasury spokesman said: “The immediate priority is to encourage oil-producing countries in Opec to increase output to help to bring down fuel prices.”

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