To Protest Fuel Costs, Truckers Plan (Nationwide) Idle Day (on April 1)

[UpInArms]

Source: New York Times

Dan Little says $4-a-gallon diesel fuel and other soaring costs forced him to temporarily halt his cattle-hauling business in Missouri several days ago, and he may have persuaded truckers across the country to pull their rigs off the road next week.

Soon after Mr. Little posted a rant about his vanishing profits on a Web site that he runs to help livestock carriers find loads to carry, he started hearing from colleagues in other states promising to join him in a nationwide trucker shutdown on April 1. Numerous drivers have used their time at home or at Internet-equipped truck stops this month to spread word of the idea on Web sites like OvertimeTruckers.com and even MySpace, the social networking site.

It might sound like an April Fool’s Day joke, but Mr. Little and other independent truckers, what the industry calls owner-operators, say they are serious about their plans to stop accepting freight on Tuesday.

“Somebody in Washington that’s a lot smarter than I am needs to take a look at this industry,” said Mr. Little, 49, whose nearly 100-year-old company has been passed down through three generations in his family. “If you’re losing money going to work, then what’s the sense in going to work? We’re either going to go broke with our trucks parked or we’re going broke out on the highway wearing our trucks out.”

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/29/business/29truck.html?ex=1364443200&en=b7a5f6d06eb65859&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

[littlebit]

1. Good for him

My three trucks will be running that day. Along with about 99.8% of the rest of the trucking industry.

[bluesmail]

16. huh? what? Was that a typo?

[ohio2007]

24. Teamsters going to go along ?

dunno,

[Manifestor_of_Light]

2. I found a poll.

at truckingindustry.net

Will you be shutting down April 1st?

Yes 69%

No 7%

Not Sure 11%

I can't 6%

I already have 7%


plus six pages of comments.

[ClintonTyree]

3. If the trucks stop.....

this country stops. A HUGE :yourock: to America's truckers. I hope they get someone's attention.

[blondeatlast]

27. Word! I remember the strike in the '70s. I was quite young at the time,

but my beloved uncle drove for Safeway then and was the local steward. I was very proud of him and all of them.

Go, truckers! I support you!

[lostnotforgotten]

4. The Real Problem - Oil Production Capacity Vs Demand aka Peak Oil

To learn more:

www.theoildrum.com

Sorry to say but these truckers are under the same gun as the ignorant motoring public.

Good fiction on the topic:

World Made By Hand

http://www.worldmadebyhand.com/

http://www.amazon.com/World-Made-James-Howard-Kunstler/dp/0871139782

[superkia]

17. So is it the war in Iraq that has caused the peak oil problem? It...

just baffles me that when Bush took office, there was no peak oil crisis and costs were low and then year after year, his Saudi and other oil industry friends have been raking in huge profits because there is now a shortage? You would also think, that while Americans are pinching pennies more and more, they would drive less so they could pay for their homes and food, everyone I know has cut back because they have had to. I understand that at some point there will obviously be an issue but it just seems strange that it started once bush and his boys came along. That and I thought their were huge areas of Iraq and Venezuela that both have enormous amounts of untouched oil, I don't know about other countries?

One question I also have, have places like Europe seen the $3 increases in prices in these same bush years or have theirs stayed around where they were? I know they have always paid more but if its peak oil causing the spike, I would suspect that everyone would be getting this same increase? Just a question, I have no clue on their prices.

[lostnotforgotten]

20. Actually, Scientific American Ran An Article In 1997 About Peak Oil

Bush's actions in IRAQ have only exacerbated the problem.

Oil prices were set to rise without or without Bush sooner or later.

[Winterblues]

26. Remember when the Bush* Cabal took office there was an Energy Crisis in California

Once the Democrats took the Senate because of Jeffers switch to Independent the "Crisis" disappeared

[Bentcorner]

5. Good! That means I will have a much more pleasant drive to work on that day.

That means I wont have 18 wheelers cutting me off or ridding my bumper when it's obvious I'm merely driving in traffic and have no place to go. We should be using trains to haul freight, not tractor trailers. We have way, way too many trucks on the road.

[newfie11]

6. I am curious, don't trains run on diesel?

How are they managing. Yes I know they haul many tons at a time but they also have multiple engines burning fuel? Just curious.

[ohio2007]

25. Actually, Diesel locomotives use the fuel to power electromagnetic generators

The real power that turns the trains wheels is a dynamo.

[Bluzmann57]

7. There are not RR tracks everywhere

How do you propose to get material to a place where there are no RR tracks? Rail service is nationwide, but if one is in the middle of town, there are not always tracks available. For instance, I live near a large drug store chain and they have many things shipped in by trucks. They have to, no RR service in this part of town.

[NutmegYankee]

9. Trucks need to go with rail service.

Right now, a container lift drops a container onto a truck on the coast (say Norfolk) and then the truck drives to Tennessee to drop his load at the warehouse. We could instead, use a train to transport the containers, and then use a truck to hop the short distance to the warehouse. (but we don't)

[appleannie1]

11. Didn't Reagan put a stop to that sort of thing?

I remember when over half the trains you saw were carrying truck trailers (piggy backs). Those days are gone and a lot of the smaller tracks into rural or small city areas have been torn up.

[Fumesucker]

18. I live close to a major trailer train yard..

There are trucks and trains in and out of there constantly and, since it isn't all that close to the interstate, the truck clog up the surface streets and beat the roads to death to boot.

Roadway damage increases at something like the cube of the vehicle weight..

[DavidMS]

12. There may not be now...

But railways are upgrading their physical plants. And it takes dramatically less fuel per ton mile to move freight by rail than by truck.

I expect to see more and more cargo shipped by rail every year. If railways electrify, the cost delta between rail freight and hi way freight will only increase.

http://www.lightrailnow.org/features/f_lrt_2006-05a.htm

Highway freight will become a much less prominent part of the national transportation system because of high fuel costs.

[Syntheto]

10. You've touched on a problem that....

....Is going to need to be addressed in the very near future. Before there is more investment in alternative fuels, I would make the argument that gasoline and diesel internal combustion systems are going to be made more efficient. However, the irony of that is for passenger cars to be more efficient, they're going to have to be made lighter and smaller. That would be great if everybody else was driving something similar, but on the other end of the food chain, tractor trailer rigs are going to have to be bigger and be capable of larger loads. If your Prius or Mini Cooper or even a Cadillac De Ville tangles with a tractor trailer, you are dead. It is that simple.

I seldom drive the interstates if I can at all avoid them, for this very reason. This drives my wife crazy, but I am very uncomfortable driving next to the big rigs, especially since I attended a hazmat class at work and can now pretty much read the graphics. Wow. I mean, you see that hazmat sign that says "flammable" or "caustic" next to you in rush hour traffic, it tends to expand the mind a bit.

Either cities need to be planned with truck ports on the periphery of the metro areas and offloading onto light rail freight (who says light rail should only be for passengers?) for further distribution or tractor trailer rigs need their own, exclusive limited access lanes with huge fines for running out of gas and high end speed limits (85 mph?) or every highway is going to have to be retrofitted to have a second deck for the cars.

[Bluzmann57]

8. It will be interesting to see how many go along with it

Some truckers must run and run a lot in order to make any money. I deal with truckers on an almost daily basis and it is doubtful whether any of the indies will stop. They simply cannot afford to stop, in spite of high diesel prices. I hope enough of them stop for a day so that the powers that be take notice. I know that I am not driving my car on that day in support of this stoppage. I would suggest that others do the same.

[wpelb]

13. April 1?

Sounds like it might be some sort of April Fools' joke.

[oldhippie]

14. Why don't they just pass on their increased fuel cost to their customers ......

.... just like the big corps do? :hide:

[roamer65]

15. One day off will solve nothing, truckers.

If you want your voices to be heard, park your rigs right out in the middle of every interstate.:evilgrin:

Dammit, they do it in France...why not here????

[2tr4nqued]

19. bump

This seems to be a spur-of-the-moment strike, so it could use some help spreading the word.

[Winterblues]

21. And Exxon continues making NET PROFITS of OVER one hundred million dollars a day.

Tell them truckers to quit their bitching. All their money isn't in the very wealthy's hands yet. Americans still have a little more they can dish out to the very rich..

[high density]

22. And the protest does... what?

The oil prices are being pumped up by commodity speculators and our currency devaluation. The speculators decided they couldn't make money on the stock market, so now the money is flowing into ratcheting up the price of oil. I fail to see how turning off the trucks for a day changes the equation here.

[2tr4nqued]

23. Democrats just star-worshippers?

It's good to see the Democratic Party so supportive of striking truckers. This whole country needs to be shut down and starved to death.