Study: Lorries Do Not Pay Enough

摘要

A few days away from the scheduled 21 January vote in the European Parliament's Transport Committee on the proposal for the Eurovignette Directive, environmentalists are sharpening their weapons and releasing new data on pollution and congestion resulting from heavy goods vehicles in Europe. This has obviously not happened by chance, while member states and MEPs are divided on the inclusion of external costs in the tolls to be paid by road hauliers.rnThe new study, carried out by the Dutch consultants CE Delft, was ordered by the organisation Transport & Environment (T&E). It shows that CO_2 emissions given off by lorries would increase by 54% by 2030, that heavy goods lorries would be responsible for 20% of traffic jams in Europe and that the noise generated by lorries would be responsible for thousands of heart diseases each year. T&E there-rnfore calls for all external costs generated by lorries to be taken into account in the proposal for a revision of the directive.