Independent truckers fume as costs rise

Sitting behind the wheel of his big rig, Sean Russell looks calm, cool and collected.

But inside, he’s tied in knots.

Dieselprices. Toll roads. Maintenance fees. Insurance payments. Dispatcher charges.

He knows that in the past year, hundreds of small- to mid-sized trucking outfits have folded under the pressure of these costs. He doesn’t want to be next.

“If you don’t make the stop, you fall behind,” Mr. Russell said. “And if you fall behind, you don’t get paid on time. And without money, there’s no gas to keep this thing going.”

Since diesel prices began to spike this year, he has spent months on the road and hours on the phone with his banker, making sure his finances are in order. Checking and double-checking before buying his next meal or gallon of diesel.

As owner and operator of God Works trucking, Mr. Russell has crisscrossed the country in his 18-wheeler with his girlfriend, Mary Carter, and her two children, Justin, 8, and Heather, 14, who just got out of school for summer break. He not only enjoys their company, Ms. Carter also holds a commercial driver’s license, meaning fewer stops and more loads.

The pair hauls construction supplies from city to city. Life is growing difficult, considering that it costs more than $1,400 to fill up the truck these days, up from about $800 a year ago.

Some truckers are so upset over fuel prices that they are protesting. Nationally, a gallon of diesel fuel is averaging $4.69 a gallon, compared with $2.80 a gallon a year ago. They’re driving trucks that get little more than 6 miles per gallon. Carriers say they need relief.

Truckers and Citizens United is a group that has protested high fuel prices at state capitols in Harrisburg, Pa., and Albany, N.Y., calling on legislatures to pass laws that will help. Hundreds from the coalition protested in the rain at the U.S. Capitol on April 28, asking Congress to stop oil company subsidies and begin using fuel in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.

Ronald Wenger, a member of Truckers and Citizens United, says, “Truckers are up against the wall. They can’t keep putting up this kind of money.” He helps organize the protests and was traveling in an 8-mile convoy toward the state Capitol in Albany when he spoke with The Washington Times: “We’re just trying to do what we can to make fuel prices lower,” he says, amid the bullhorns and shouting that surround him. “More and more truckers are being forced out because of these prices. If you put too many truckers out, we’re going to have empty shelves at the grocery store. Then this will become everybody’s problem, not just a trucker problem.”

Mr. Russell knows their pain. He and other haulers aren’t paid back for the fuel they use until weeks after they’ve completed their runs. So, Mr. Russell could be driving for weeks before the broker who tells him where to go pays him. Even when he does get paid, he doesn’t know what kind of surcharges will be taken out of his check. The instability puts him on edge. It adds up after a while, he says.

“It puts extra pressure on you when you’re out there trying to run a legitimate business,” he said, “and then the price of fuel keeps going higher and higher.”

American Trucking Associations state Vice President Mike Card testified before Congress on May 6. He outlined the financial hardships of the nation’s motor carriers.

“Our industry can’t simply absorb this rapid increase in fuel costs,” Mr. Card said. “We must pass some of these costs through to our customers, which ultimately translate into higher prices on the store shelves.”

The ATA says the trucking industry overall is on pace to spend $141.5 billion on fuel in 2008, $29 billion more than a year earlier. In the 2008 first quarter, 935 trucking companies with at least five trucks failed, the ATA says. This represents the largest number of trucking-related failures since the 2001 third quarter.

High fuel prices forced Mark Kitchens to sell off his fleet of trucks. He has owned Mark’s Trucking in Collins, Miss., for 15 years. In April, Mr. Kitchens came to the conclusion that if he wanted to make any money through the business, he had to get rid of five trucks. He managed to keep one for himself.

“It’s just ridiculous,” he said, when asked about the price of diesel fuel. “I don’t think I’ll ever get back in the trucking business. It just isn’t worth it.”

The problem for Mr. Russell - other than the monumental dieselprices - is the unforeseeables, he says. Like when he took his rig to a mechanic for a regular oil change a few weeks ago. Other than the $300 price tag, the oil change seemed innocent enough. But the mechanic failed to put the dipstick back properly.

Oblivious to the mechanic’s mistake, Mr. Russell drove from southern to northern Pennsylvania and burned through four gallons of oil. When Mr. Russell found out what was wrong, he pulled over and filled the oil tank up, but it cost him.

The delay pushed him back a few hours. And the lost hours caused Mr. Russell to be late to unload aluminum coils at Basic Metals Inc. in Germantown, Wis. The metal company had already closed up for the weekend. So, Mr. Russell and the family decided to make the most of it and visited nearby Chicago until the business opened on Monday morning.

A simple mistake knocked the truck off schedule three days, he says. Now he’s scampering to make up lost time and get back on track.

“It just puts a hurt on the money your going to get,” he says. “You just hope that next time it isn’t the engine or something worse.”

Lately, another unforeseen delay - bad weather - has been hampering business. Mass flooding, heavy rains and winds that “could blow you straight off the road” are dangerous, Mr. Russell says.

But so is waiting it out.

If the storm is bad enough, it could mean losing a day or two. Going around it would cost too much in fuel. So pressing on is often the best option. “You never now how bad it’s going to be until you’re in it,” Mr. Russell says. “Then you make a decision.”

However, he’s lucky enough, he says, because he travels with his family and takes turns driving with Ms. Carter. Yet they rarely stop - except to unload.

“It gets tiring because we’re driving straight through,” Mr. Russell says, “but, financially, it’s the only way we’re going to make it - if we make it at all.”