Safety is the name of the game today. Insurance giant Norwich Union is urging operators to fit blind-spot mirrors to their trucks now instead of waiting for mandatory fitment under EU law, and the Trussed Rafter Association has issued guidelines for truck drivers delivering rafters following a string of accidents and one fatality.

The number of trucks on the road has gone down since 1990, and longer, heavier vehicles could be one way to reduce this further. In today’s news the DfT denies The Times’ suggestion that it is sitting on the results of a report into LHVs because it disagrees with the findings. And there will be more trucks – at least foreign ones – come 2009 when operators from the Czech Republic, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Slovakia are granted access to the UK haulage market.

Over in the blogs, BigLorryBlog learns that composite axles are still alive and kicking, and Oliver Dixon considers a report suggesting that the US heavy truck market is poised for growth. Perhaps unsurprisingly, he disagrees...