Thank you Dave. That is a very interesting site that clarifies these complex regulations very well.
To my great surprise it even clarifies exactly what is meant by this strange, and to some misunderstood, word Cabotage. I see it is as you said it was.
The books we had on Grangewood: I am reminded that the Green one was indeed called ECMT though it did not cover half as many Countries as it does now. It too had a rather complex tonne/kilometer calculation to make. The pink one we had, this is going back a while mind, was obviously the forerunner of the present blue permit and covered just a few of the even then Member Countries.
Happy days they were indeed. Fortunately we never ran to Carryfastland.
Thanks again
David
David Miller:
Happy days they were indeed.
Indeed they were David, but you’ve still got me with that pink book. 
The blue or green books were both used for the whole of my 12yrs on that job.
Now I’ll admit that I guessing here (unlike some) but I think the difference in which countries were in which of the two books will have altered, for example when Sweden and Finland joined the EU, or when the EEC became the EU.
I’ll admit that a couple of the countries in the present ECMT list are strange to me.
David Miller:
Fortunately we never ran to Carryfastland.
We were asked to go there, but we couldn’t get a straight answer as to which type of permit we needed. 
You may well be right. Maybe it was blue.
Perhaps my obsession with pink comes from completely a different thing There was a lot of it about in those days.
David
dieseldave:
Note to all vehicle operators: it should be borne in mind the minister of transport for Carryfastland has not ratified the ECMT agreement.
Apparently, there’s an ongoing dispute about definitions. 
Absolutely and in Carryfastland we’d still have a Merchant Navy and an International road transport fleet worth the name.
As opposed to what we’re left with in the form of our ‘Bi Lateral’ transport market having been taken over by the foreign competition and people blaming the unions for it.In a similar way that we handed our manufacturing industry to the Germans and now the Chinese.I’m sure that Robbo would be ecstatic about the latter.
David Miller:
British labour relations were such a cause of merryment to every German you spoke to. Perhaps that was our purpose in life - to make the Germans happy?
David
To be fair with the post war pay off and sweeteners that the Krauts got to meet US foreign policy aims they could afford to take the ■■■■ out the same generation here that defeated them.
On that note as I said the anti union agenda obviously doesn’t have the excuse of Robbo in the case of explaining the transfer Ford and GM production ironically to higher paid German workers nor the destruction of Rover and Triumph.
rigsby:
I remember their constant harping on about supporting them in their " struggle " for better pay and conditions , but when the transport industry were proposing to strike for the same thing there was no support from them at all . Tossers the lot of them . Dave
Exactly true, same with the dockers. Drivers would literally take their lives in their hands if they crossed a dockers picket line. But a docker would never support a truck driver.
revman:
0 the best thing I ever did joining the URTU,joined 1966 & still a member now ( Honary)worked both in general Haulage & own Account (Leonard Green Haulage, British Steel) and Been on strike with both for better terms & conditions, hearing compensation driving noisy vehicles, (GUY Big J Rolls Eagle with a fibreglass bonnet). The deposit on my first house was compensation for a lift of steel bars dropping on my foot,representation in court when a Taxi tried passing on the inside of a roundabout,then took early retirement & did fifteen years on the agency and my union membership stood me in good stead, a stroppy foreman told me I was taking to long on a job ( Carlisle Changeover) any letters I got I only had to ask for copies for union files and never got any more.Then when I finished an invite to a meal and Presentation of £100 from the UNITED ROAD TRANSPORT UNION, get the strength of the union behind You,cheers ALAN
There are many posts on here about the URTU. They are without a doubt the best ever Truck Driver’s Union. Remember the abysmal TandGWU ? What a con that outfit was ! !
ChrisArbon:
Carryfast:
dieseldave:
Carryfast:
As for cabotage.We’ve already got it in the form of East Euro tramping operations doing third country haulage between UK and Western Europe.
Third country work is NOT cabotage.
The part I’ve quoted makes no sense whatsoever, therefore I submit that it’s NONsense. 
I might be wrong.But I think a Mexican based operator and reg truck would be stopped from hauling a load from the US to Canada and a backload from Canada to the US and that would be seen as a form of cabotage involving those two countries for all intents and purposes.Or at least the Canadians had better hope that I’m right. 
While I think the idea of what I mean’t,regarding Brit jobs for Brit workers ( or Canadian/US ones ),is clear enough regardless.With third country operations being seen historically as a form of cabotage that needed special permits ?. To stop the type of situation we’ve got now of the West Euro,especially UK,international fleet being taken out by East Euro third country operations ?.
I don’t know what North American regulations have got to do with a thread about Red Robbo but as I am sitting in Laredo waiting for a trailer load of Mexican goods to be transhipped onto my Canadian trailer; I’ll tell you how it works.
I do three trips a month from Canada down to the Mexican border. Sometimes the trailer goes into Mexico pulled by Mexican unit. Sometimes I unload at a transhipping facility and the stuff goes in a Mexican trailer. This is big business at the border towns and not likely to change any time soon. I can only load back to Canada and either get a transhipped load or one of our own trailers ready loaded and brought back across by a Mexican unit. There are plenty of Mexican units running about in the US but only in the border zone. They could run up to Canada if they wanted and there is scheme for them to have US government trackers fitted at the US government’s expense. The only Mexican registered trucks that I have seen outside the border zone have been owned and operated by Mexican Mennonites.
Everybody seems happy with the way things are. It was minus 13 when I left Winnipeg and plus 30 when I got to Laredo. Why would any Mexican want to run US-Canada? Mexico is prosperous enough for them not to need international haulage work in the Tundra.
A Mexican Mennonite. Wow - never heard of one of those. Cab over or bull nose ■■