To back up my position (again) that striking for fuel prices is the wrong way to go, I want to point out a couple of articles from Canada –

MAY 1, 2005
OBAC Urges Owner-Ops To Say No To Cheap Freight

OTTAWA, ONT. (May 1, 2005)
– Responding to the recent protests and road blockages in the Vancouver
area, the Owner-Operator’s Business Association of Canada is advising
its members that blockades and protests will have little, if any,
impact on fuel pricing, and serve only to alienate truckers from the
communities they serve.

“Rather than clambering after governments to cut fuel prices,
owner-ops should be focusing their attention on the real problem –
inadequate haulage rates – and going after their customers to start
paying what it costs to have their freight moved,” says OBAC chief
Joanne Ritchie. “Tax exemptions and rebates are band-aid solutions when
what’s needed is open-heart surgery.”

These are watershed times, Ritchie says. With strong economic growth
driving increased demand for trucking services and driver shortages
squeezing capacity, there’s never been a better opportunity to improve
the rate structure.

“There’s plenty of evidence that customers are
willing to pay more to have their freight moved, and the vast majority
of shippers are paying surcharges to offset skyrocketing fuel prices,”
she says. “If owner-ops aren’t seeing the benefits, their carriers are
either not collecting appropriate surcharges or are not passing them
through to the contractors.”

They go on to explain how to run a business.

OBAC suggests all owner-operators begin
conducting a critical cost analysis of their operations to determine
the scope of the shortfall in rates. For example, at 80 cents per
litre, an owner-operator achieving a reasonable fuel mileage of six
miles per gallon (IMP) is paying 60.6 cents per mile to run the truck.
When fuel was at 50 cents per litre, it cost only 37.8 cents per mile
to operate – a difference of nearly 23 cents per mile. At current
haulage rates, fuel eats up the lion’s share of revenue, leaving little
for payments, maintenance, wages, or profit. This is the kind of
rationale owner-ops need to bring forward when approaching their
customers for rate increases. 

“Owner-operators have a huge amount of clout in this market, and
many of them just aren’t taking advantage of it. They’ve got to get
over the idea they have to settle for less because there are a dozen
drivers lined up to take the job,” Ritchie says. “That’s simply no
longer true. Buying into the myth and continuing to work for less than
it costs to run the truck allows carriers to get away with charging
substandard rates. This keeps the bad carriers in business. As long as
they have a workforce willing to haul for less than it costs to run a
truck, the carriers have little reason risk angering their customers
with the prospect of rate increases.”

Ritchie points out that the carrier associations are urging their
members to use this tight market to regain some lost ground in rates,
and she says it’s high time owner-ops took a little of that advice too.

The American version OOIDA says the basically same thing, except for gallons instead of liters.

Here’s a seperate article about a strike about fuel prices, also in Canada.

B.C. truckers snarl traffic to protest high fuel

            CTV.ca News Staff

Upset
over dramatically rising fuel costs, about 500 dump truck drivers drove
their rigs through Vancouver’s Lower Mainland Friday in protest.

The drivers are trying to bring attention to their increasingly
desperate situation, with diesel prices hovering around $1 a litre — a
huge monthly increase that’s cutting a deep swath into their wages.

"I’m paying at least a thousand dollars more (a month) than I used to pay last year," one trucker told CTV Vancouver.

Their protest, the second in a week, slowed Vancouver area
traffic to a crawl; and completely starved the construction industry of
supplies on Friday, grinding it to a halt.

"This is the only way to get your message through to industry that,
in fact, (we) mean business," said B.C. Teamsters president Don McGill. 

Notice that it’s an actual organized Teamsters union. And their solution?

To make up the shortfall, truckers are demanding fuel surcharges on
their hauling rates, amounting to an extra 12 per cent from
contractors. The amount will then, ultimately, be handed on to
consumers.

"Costs are going to be passed on," said McGill. "It’s payback time and we have to have it."

Last week, truckers hit the road to pressure federal and provincial governments to cut fuel taxes.

Good idea, but…

Falcon met with the truckers’ representatives, but all he offered
was a promise to gather the stakeholders for a meeting to look into a
solution for the high fuel costs.
 

A Calgary fuel industry analyst said that the struggling western
truckers will have to live with the high pump prices. At least for now.

Promises from a politician to have a meeting and a fuel analyst saying, "eh, too bad." Really successful strike.

A seperate article about the same strike, but from the other side.

Truckers’ action has low impact on industry
May, 06 2005 – 2:50 PM

VANCOUVER/CKNW(AM980)
- Peter Simpson, the CEO of the Greater Vancouver Homebuilders
Association, says the impact of today’s protest by dump truck drivers
has been very small on his members.

"We have about 470 member
companies, half of whom are builders, developers and renovators so they
had the warning. They took steps to make sure that they were okay and
it hasn’t been a major problem today because it’s only a one-day event,
anyway."

Simpson says they empathize with the truckers because everyone is suffering under the high fuel prices.

Again, the same response, "poor truckers have it rough, but so does everyone." What good did a union organized strike do? And some owner operators here in the states think striking is going to do any good? Someone explain that to me, without saying a strike will show how important we are.

Call me names, tell me I don’t know what I’m talking about, but BACK IT UP!!!

Originally posted 2005-05-10 12:00:24.

Fredericksburg.com – Let’s debate, now, the president’s border schemes.

         Larry Johnson Date published: 6/21/2006
   
   

I would like to see Congress do something proactive for the people of the U.S. for a change, instead of covering their collective backs after the fact.

For instance, how about debating Bush’s commitment to a North American union, featuring the Trans-Texas Corridor–a 400-yard-wide privately owned toll road and utility corridor that will literally divide America in half, from ports in Mexico to Kansas City for the first leg.

The first Trans-Texas Corridor segment of the NAFTA superhighway is ready to begin construction next year.

The billions involved will be provided by a foreign company, Cintra Concessions de Infraestructuras de Transporte, S.A. of Spain.

Where is the support or opposition from Congress? Why are they sneaking this past the American people?

A good reason Bush does not want to secure the border with Mexico may be that the administration is trying to create express lanes for Mexican trucks to bring containers with cheap Far East goods into the heart of the U.S.

A foreign company helping build this and push this forward? I guess Congress and the President think we’re too stupid and jingoistic to realize what a great idea this is. I’m glad there’s someone that is looking out for us! You mean they’re not? It’s only for power and money and more power? Huh! Who would have thought?

Tags nafta superhighway

Originally posted 2006-07-02 03:00:00.

“The Ontario trucking industry is deeply concerned about the looming crisis facing our industry as a result of a shortage of drivers. Our driver workforce has been aging for some time because fewer and fewer young people have been choosing the trucking industry as a career or have been prevented from doing so by restrictive insurance practices that deny insurance to younger drivers. As the older drivers retire, there have not been enough younger drivers here in Canada to take their place,” said OTA president David Bradley in a press release.

Somebody is probably making the same excuses here in the U.S.

But until rates go up and trucks are sitting empty, there’s no shortage. Just because a company has a few trucks sitting idle, because they bought too many does not constitute a shortage. Just because trucking has to raise it’s rates because there is increased demand, does not constitue a shortage. Just because they have to raise wages to keep and attract quality professionals, does not constitute a shortage.

When produce rots in the warehouse, that’s a shortage. But so far there seems to be plenty of cheap freight for those dumb enough to take it. If I have to wait three days for a load, then drive empty 900 miles to get a decent load, there’s no shortage.

Ask the zillions of trucks in the truckstops waiting for loads out of Seattle and the Northwest. There’s no shortage.

Trucking companies pay by the mile, most pay some sort of layover, but it’s pocket change.

Instead of raising wages and raising rates, they hire more drivers because there’s a shortage. There may be a shortage of drivers that they can pay poverty wages to. That’s the only shortage there is.

Originally posted 2008-06-05 08:36:02.

Company fined $14,450 for rig on bridge (phillyBurbs.com)
Swift Transportation Co. of Phoenix, Ariz., was fined $14,450 on Wednesday because one of its drivers drove a 28-ton tractor-trailer over the deteriorating, 3-ton-limit, canal bridge on River Road in Upper Makefield, police said.

Probably close to 40 tons on a 3 ton bridge. I’ve been lost before, and Philly or anywhere in PA isn’t a good place to be lost in. Or maybe someone told him to go that way. In any case, you get what you pay for. (Cheap pay for inexperienced drivers.)

Originally posted 2008-08-24 03:30:00.

Originally posted 2006-02-24 18:12:54.

Truckers could pay $216 in Trans-Texas Corridor tolls
If the first leg of the proposed Trans-Texas Corridor is actually built paralleling Interstate 35, it could be a very expensive toll road for big trucks.

The Waco Tribunereported that the Texas Department of Transportation’s master plan calls for charging trucks 58.5 cents per mile.

If that were the case, it would cost $216.45 to run the full 370 miles of the corridor – nearly four times what four-wheelers would pay.

A manager with Old Dominion Freight Lines told the Tribune the company plans to send its trucks on the existing I-35 and avoid the tolls altogether.

Four-wheelers on the Trans-Texas Corridor would pay 15.2 cents per mile.

It’s not about saving money, it’s about destroying America’s sovereignty. I knew this before, this only confirms it.

Originally posted 2006-12-06 08:22:47.