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FUEL COST CRISIS * USA - 'If this truck stops, America stops'
* Diesel weighs on truckers - Fuel passes driver wages as top expense
Tulsa,OK,USA -Tulsa World, by JASON WOMACK -30 Mar 2008: -- With diesel prices at all-time highs, trucking companies are battling to curb costs and maintain profits. Bob Peterson, president and CEO of Tulsa-based Melton Truck Lines Inc., said the company has rolled back allowable highway speeds from 68 mph to 65 mph. It is also installing generators on trucks to reduce idling costs and ultimately cut fuel expenses. Other companies are training drivers on how to conserve fuel and taking steps to make their trucks more aerodynamic... But Melton's efforts to save fuel and slash costs can't happen fast enough. Diesel prices have jumped about 44 cents a gallon in the last month, making it difficult for the company to keep up. Melton expects to spend about $72 million this year on fuel -- nearly triple what it spent in 2003. And those costs for truckers, much like gasoline prices for automobile owners, have a way of permeating the entire marketplace... (Photo by SHERRY BROWN / Tulsa World - A.D. Transport Express driver Terry Sampson of Louisville, Ky., fills his rig with diesel at the Flying J Travel Plaza)* Diesel prices force logger to give up 3 trucks
Augusta,Maine,USA -The Bangor Daily News (Bangor,ME,USA), by George Chappell -March 29, 2008: -- The Donald Hayden family of Harmony took their "bad news on a bad day" with grace in the wet, snowy Statehouse parking lot Friday... Three of their company’s tractor-trailer trucks were repossessed, and two more were scheduled to be taken away over the weekend... Donald A. Hayden, 58, president of Donald Hayden & Son Logging Inc., said he is losing his 35-year-old business because of high diesel fuel prices... When Hayden bought the three trucks in March 2006, diesel fuel was $2.60 a gallon, but it has risen to $4.14 a gallon, he said. Because the fuel price has almost doubled, Hayden said, he could not pay for fuel and make his truck payments at the same time... By Monday, Hayden will have two working logging trucks left to run a company that he has built over decades. He has already laid off three drivers and plans to let two more drivers go, he said... (Photo by Gabor Degre/Bangor Daily News - Donald Hayden of Harmony took his trucks to the State House parking lot to be repossessed there because he is unable to make payments on them because of high fuel costs) * Prices prompt talk of possible truck shutdown
El Paso,TX,USA -The El Paso Times, by Vic Kolenc -30 March 2008: -- Record high diesel fuel prices have truck drivers and trucking companies searching for ways to reign in costs and are fueling talk from independent truckers about a strike or temporary trucking shutdown... In El Paso, the average diesel price hit a record high of $3.89 a gallon last Thursday -- $1.06 a gallon higher than a year ago... Those prices have the CB radio filled with talk of a possible truck shutdown during the first three days of April... Joe Parra, operations manager of Bordertown Transportation, an El Paso trucking company employing about 60 drivers and four independent truckers, said some shipping brokers won't pay surcharges, or get a surcharge from customers and don't pass it on to the trucking company... Jones at Mesilla Valley Transportation said fuel costs now equal more than the driver expenses and truck combined, and those fuel costs make cash flow a big problem...
Parra said the company dropped its trucks' speed limits from 75 mph to 72 mph, and "probably will drop it down more." The company is tuning up trucks more often and using fuel additives to increase fuel mileage, he said... Villalobos says he sees more trucks with "For Sale" signs. El Paso bankruptcy lawyers have reported seeing more independent truck drivers filing for bankruptcy this year... (Photos by Mark Lambie / El Paso Times: 1· Owner-operator Benny Davis fills his truck Friday at an East Side truck stop, costing $654.57 for 165 gallons. Diesel fuel averaged almost $3.90 a gallon in El Paso last week. The American Trucking Association is concerned about diesel's impact on the trucking industry and the nation's economy - 2· An 18-wheeler approaches I-10 West from Horizon Boulevard on Friday as the price for diesel reaches $3.89 a gallon at Love's Truck Stop)* Putting on the brakes - High fuel costs are to blame for the closing of Henry's Truck Stop.
York,PA,USA -The York Daily Record, by SEAN ADKINS -30 March 2008: -- ... While higher fuel prices have contributed to the loss of many independent truck drivers, the slowing economy has financially pinched those who remain on the road... Windell Wilson, a truck driver from Pike County who stopped at Henry's about once a month, said gasoline-conscious consumers are buying fewer goods, leading many businesses to cut the number of products they stock on their shelves... That leaves truck drivers with less freight to haul, he said... "I have a sticker on my truck that says: 'If this truck stops, America stops,'" Wilson said...
Labels: fuel cost troubles
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