I'm an English lorry driver working for an English company and the more we allow foreign hauliers under-cut us, the more companies will go under. Sooner or later and IT will be sooner we will have no domestic haulage industry and the roads will be full of LHD lorries that do not pay their way or contribute to the exchequer.
I'm sorry too say this but YOU get what you pay for, if the public want cheap goods on the shelves then you get cheap drivers in badly maintained vehicles.
Everything you use, wear, eat has at sometime been moved by a lorry, you need us, please don't lose us forever.
Check out the web-site and see the strength of feeling out there with UK hauliers and drivers.

www.truckersworld.co.uk

We are not the enemy, just ordinary people trying desperately to do our job and put food on the table and a roof over our head.

ML, Wellington, England

What is this government trying to do to this country? Whose job is going to come under attack next? It won't be a white collar worker you can guarantee that. Not a day goes by without our government endorsing some totally unjust law from Brussels that anyone with an ounce of common sense would see will have a negative effect on the people of Britain. Where will it all end? They cannot continue to force these unpopular laws on us that have been passed through by unelected faceless bureaucrats in another country. We are all horrified by the injusticies that are happening in Tibet and Zimbabwe yet we allow 75% of our laws to be made by people that we did not vote for and we have not even been asked if we want this. More and more people are waking up to this fact and eventually there will be trouble. This cannot continue without there being a serious backlash and blood shed. I fear for my children and grandchildren if we do not pull out of the EU before it is too late. Where is democracy?

Victoria, London,

No surprise here, the "safety" camera partnerships will just love this when deaths and injuries start to rise, itll be just another excuse to scameratise us even more whilst totally ignoring the real facts presented in ths article.

DF, UK,

i was side-swiped in february by a slovackian truck driver. he just barged his way onto the m25 straight into the side of my car. im dealing with the a slow insurance claim at the moment. the cheeky chap (not what i called him at the time i can tell you!) had the cheek to say that because he was indicating i should have moved out of the way, despite that not being possible due to the heavy traffic, clearly this chap had never read the highway code.

the police took all the details, the copper who dealt with me explained about blind spot (thanks for that), no mention of fault or driving without due care etc. i have to say it was the most frightening thing thats ever happened to me. one minute im driving along, and the next im going sideways.

the same thing happened to a friend of mine about 4 years ago. she was in a nissan micra, and hasnt driven since... too scared.

i think the fact i was in a big, heavy, well made car may well have saved my life.

nerf, london, uk

In 1994, the NAFTA agreement stated that all commercial freight trucks (or "lorries" in your language) from Mexico should be permitted to travel to anywhere within the U.S. and Canada- The Clinton administration had blocked this provision of the agreement, citing that safety standards for commercial freight trucks in Mexico were far more lenient than in the U.S.- Prior to last year, Mexican trucks were only permitted to travel the first 100 miles north of the U.S. border.
Last year, the Bush adminstration complied with this 1994 provision from NAFTA, and in this past September, commercial freight trucks from Mexico began to be permitted to travel throughout the U.S.- This has been one of the very few decisions which I think that President Bush's approach actually makes a lot more sense than his predecessor's- Although the allowing of Mexican trucks into the U.S. has only been permitted for the past 6 months, to date as far as I know, there has not been an increase in accidents

Scott Benowitz, Rye, New York, U.S.A.

Simple solution, break the rules then the lorry is impounded until it is repaired to a roadworthy condition or the driver has enough hours. Add an appropriate fine and those foreign lorries will be brought up to UK standards.

Why does this government want all of our jobs to go to overseas people, our airports are Spanish, trains are French, electricy and gas are German etc

This is a very short term view and will come back to bite us in the bum in future years.

joe, Edinburgh, Scotland

This really does nothing to enhance the reputation of our government. As a member of the general public (not a lorry driver or has any relative who is) I deeply feel for our lorry drivers. Already I think foreigners should pay something for the up-keep of our roads, seen as we do on some of the continent's roads.

I used to work for a company who used a freight company that would often contract work out to foreign drivers. Often these drivers would cause us problems by not adhering to site Health & Safety rules and the language barrier would mean jobs would often take longer than it should have. My major concern over this news is the safety factor. I just cannot understand it ever being acceptable to allow something to take place where there is evidence that it will lead to further unecessary deaths on our road. My hope is that the government will reconsider their stance on the above and do everything in their power to ensure our lives are not put at further risk.

James, Bristol, England

So the wonderful EU now wants to allow even more substandard and dangerous HGVs onto our motorways where they can directly compete with British hauliers who have far higher safety standards and much higher operating costs.

British HGV drivers pay vastly higher fuel costs due to the NuLabour policy of taxing fuel to the limits.

Every day I go down on my knees and thank God for allowing us to be a part of the wonderful EUSSR and to be governed by a repressive socialist regime at home.

Donna Walker, Effingham, Surrey

Proof that our raod tax is grossley unfair to British drivers. Most of these guys, just like immigrants with cars from their own country, don't pay road tax. They would pay it if it was on the fuel.

Bob, Warrington, Cheshire

Of course this inept government wants a huge database and ID cards for its population, at great expense and with no provable benefit, but ask it to do the same with a datbase for foreign, when the benefits are obvious to anyone with half a brain and they demur. Tax the British motorist and British hauliers off the roads, but refuse to obtain a small sum from foreign hauliers. Oh yes, the benefits of a British University Education as a vocational qualification for politicians is all too obvious.

Bill Q, Derby,