Prices have risen for 10 consecutive weeks

Prices have gone up every week for the past 12 weeks with a more than two pence rise last week, the association's director of policy, Jack Semple, said.

He described the impact as "quite severe" and criticised duty rates in Britain which he said were "much higher" than elsewhere in Europe.

Fuel protests had been discussed, he added, but had won little support.

However, Mr Semple warned that if prices continued to rise and hauliers became increasingly frustrated with government policy, protests could not be ruled out.

Oil prices 'volatile'

"We are looking towards the government for help in terms of an equal duty playing field with Europe to achieve price stability," he said.

Fuel was "the biggest variable cost" for hauliers, he said, and it had "gone up every week for 12 weeks".

"But there is definite frustration and anger. There shouldn't be an increase in fuel duty at a time of clear volatility in oil prices," he added.

There's a lot of unhappiness about the fact that prices are going up remorselessly Geoff Dossetter Freight Transport Association

However, a spokesman for pressure group Transaction 2007, the reincarnation of organisations involved in the 2000 fuel protests, said he believed protest action would be taken.

"I think it will happen in the next seven to ten days. I can't say much about it," he said.

The action was likely to take the form of "rolling road" blocks, he added.

Geoff Dossetter, director of external affairs at the Freight Transport Association, said: "I don't think there's the appetite for protests like there was before.