Record-High Diesel Fuel is Affecting Truck Drivers

What is wrong with this world? People are worried over Britney Spears and American Idol and such, when we have a bigger crisis here...

I am a truck driver for a national company. I run along the same roads making two trips from Hazleton, Pennsylvania, to York, Pennsylvania, a day. On March 12, 2008, I passed the same truck stop four times. I drive back and forth on I-81 delivering paper to a large printer in York, PA. The truck stop in question is the Love's Truck Stop located on Exit 90, I -81 (In Pennsylvania). The first time I went past, diesel was $3.96 a gallon. An hour and a half later, it was $3.99. Two hours later it was $4.01. The forth time I went past, it was $4.06. A 10-cent increase in the course of about eight hours is staggering.

At the end of my workday I parked in another truck stop, and I just noticed, that diesel is $4.14 a gallon!!! 95 cents more expensive than gasoline! (I am glad that I am a company driver, and not an owner operator). Today, March 24, 2008, I just filled the truck with fuel. One hundred fifty-three gallons of diesel came to a staggering total of $641.07. That comes out to $4.19 per gallon. (This makes an almost six percent increase in the price of diesel fuel in thirteen days!) Now, this particular day I finished a two-day run delivering toilet paper and paper towels to a Wal-Mart distribution center in Pottsville, PA. Those very same paper goods are going to be loaded on another truck and delivered to the Wal-Mart store that you may shop at.

But you say, so what, it is good that those big smelly slow trucks have to pay so much more than I to fill their tanks up. But remember, you are the one who is ultimately paying to fill the fuel tanks (up to 200+ gallons a fill). The costs of transporting everything you buy at any store is handed down until you the consumer such item(s).

The economists are claiming we are heading into a recession, and you know what...I AGREE! With fuel costs increasing 2.5% in one day we are DEFINITELY heading towards a recession. Companies are not paying their employees a six percent raise, but with costs of fuel rising, everyone will have to make cuts in their budgets to cover the cost. But some people claim that this is only temporary, this is because of the Iraq war, et cetera. Wrong!

This is the trend we are facing, and it is not because of war in the Middle East. It is because of people not allowing our government to pursue domestic oil reserves. We are forced to rely on foreign powers to sell us oil at whatever cost they decide. Remember the gas lines of the 70's, rationing to just a few gallons a week. I was just a kid in grade school, but I remember that one summer waiting in line to buy a few gallons of gasoline sweating because the air conditioner made the car burn more gasoline.

We need to start thinking about what fuel costs are doing. The groceries you put on you dining room table, the clothes you wear, the house you live in, everything was on a truck at least once before you bought it. The way fuel prices are climbing, with no drop in sight, we are heading for trouble. Soon you may even need a second job to keep up with the cost of everyday necessities.