Motorway tolls & EU borders.
64Port of Calais (France)
Click thumbnail to view full-sizeThe technology exists
As an International truck driver I ask myself why don“t European countries have the same toll system the Germans have currently, Im not very good with maths, but it would help the environment if we did not have to stop at the toll booths, especially in France as there are too many in some locations in such a short distance, not only would it save fuel, brakes, time and also help cut down the pollution we truckers leave every time we have to stop and start, the technology is there why dont we use it?, also i would like to let the tax payers from France and Great Britain know what happens when we truckers go from France to England via Calais, as we arrive we go through 4 different controls,(at least me anyway) 1st the heart beat monitor to check if we are carring ilegal immigrants, here there is normally 2 people from the French side, one writes down the vehicles number plate and presses a button to open and close the doors on the building we drive through, meanwhile the other places some cables onto the chassis of the truck to monitor electric magnetic pulses, I e the heart beat, basically it tells them if there is anybody or animal in the vehicle that should not be there, I know for a fact that there are devices that read number plates, It must be to much of a job for the same person that puts the cables on the vehicle to open and close the doors, I cant understand why there is two people to carry out such a not demanding task, the second control is to check in, here we hand the ferry company employee our passport and documents relevant to our load so he can process our booking and allocate a lane for us to park in until our boat commences loading, after this other stop and start we now go on to the UK passport control, yet again we hand the officer our passport to verify the photo on it and ten out of ten times as I hold a UK passport and drive for a Spanish company he directs me to the next stop that is the UK cusstoms, here there are normally 4 sometimes 5 personel, again one to write down the number plate and check yet again my passport, another holds the ladder so his partner does not fall as he visually checks the load with the back doors open,( I do not know what they look for as to this day they have not found it) the other two are normally talking to each other having a cup of tea, now on to the final check point, after passing trough the Uk controls its time for the French ones, basically the same as the previous, passport, open doors, cmr or documents etc, after stoping and starting 4 times, wasting fuel, breaks, time and contaminating the environment, I honestly believe they could half the personnel thus save the tax payers money and even employ disabled people to carry out some of the tasks involved. Maybe they could work together and cut back on so many employees. If we all pulled our weight and worked a little harder maybe we could retire at a decent age, looking at how things are to come it does not look too good. I blame it on the corrupt monetary system we live in.






