It's Getting Harder to Keep on Truckin'

Rising costs and stagnant freight rates are driving some truckers off the road. As fuel costs rise, Independent truckers are suffering.

Trucker Robert Griffith is on the road three weeks out of four, pulling oversize loads like crane booms, railroad ties and air conditioning ducts. One of his biggest worries: How he’ll find the money to buy his daughter a prom dress.

My Comment: Excuse me, but this attitude is exactly what's wrong. When someone's biggest biggest worry is over prom dresses, priorities are not set quite straight.

“I had to learn to live totally different,” said Griffith, 41, of Lebanon, Tenn.

No more $150 family outings to Shogun sushi. No more weekly washes for his Western Star 4900 EX truck. No more health insurance for him and his family.

“It hurts,” he said. “I’m a man who’s trying to make a living for my family and I’m not succeeding.”

My Comment: If you were saving instead of spending $150 on family outings to Shogun Sushi, then perhaps you could have afforded to buy your daughter a prom dress. In fact, had you saved all those weekly truck washes and Shogun Sushis, perhaps you would not see a need to cancel health insurance for your family. Talk about skewed priorities.

About nine percent of the nation’s 3.4 million truck drivers are independent owner-operators, according to the Department of Labor. Without the independents, trucking will turn into a group of “regional and national oligopolies” that would send shipping prices higher when the economy improves, said John Saldanha, who teaches logistics at Ohio State University.

My Comment: John Saldanha needs to consider timeframes when the economy improves and how low things get in the meantime.

Rumors of a nationwide truck strike are a nearly annual occurrence — but this year an effort in January generated more talk than usual on MySpace and the Sirius Satellite Radio show “Freewheelin”.

My Comment: Let them strike. Those who do will suffer. The economy is slowing in case “Freewheelin” did not notice. The time to strike (if indeed there is such a time at all) is when things are going well and you are needed, not when things are sour and people are clamoring for jobs to stay alive.

Nanette Jenkins Rudd, 40, a third-generation trucker based in Mapleton, Ill., kept her five trucks off the road the week of the strike.

“I pray that this strike is successful, so that we only have to stop rolling for a week — and not forever,” she said.

Like other truckers, she’s hoping for government help. “The government stepped in and helped the farmers when they were in trouble,” she said. “Why? Because the farmers feed America, the farmers put food on the table. But who do you think delivers that food?”

My Comment: Truckers deserve as much government "help" as anyone else. That is to say none. Government "help" is exactly what has destroyed this economy. The government needs to get the hell out of the way.

Truckers say they want caps on diesel prices, or tax credits for truckers, as well as increased regulation for the middlemen who broker truck loads.

My Comment: Price caps do not work. If they did Zimbabwe would be an economic success. How many times do we have to prove price caps do not work?

Does anyone remember Nixon's wage and price controls? There has never been wage or price controls in history that have worked. Price controls are nonsense.

Michael Bloomberg Loses Mind

If the haulin' business did not have enough problems already Michael Bloomberg just added to them with this announcement: New York City to make hybrid private hire limos mandatory from 2009.

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced yesterday that the city’s Taxi and Limousine Commission [TLC] will require ‘black cars’ that service corporate clients to increase fuel efficiency standards to levels currently achievable only by using hybrid technology, though these (25 mpg by 2009, 30 mpg by 2010) could be met by some European diesel cars if they were permitted.

Black cars currently release 272,000 tons of CO2 equivalents annually, which make up 2% of the City's transport-related emissions. Under the new standards, emissions from black cars will be cut in half.

My Comment: To cure 2% of the "problem" all black car limo drivers will need new vehicles. Does this make any sense anywhere but Bizarro World?

To help drivers finance the down payment associated with buying a new car, the City has worked with partners in the financial sector, dealers, and black car fleets to develop a range of solutions that will finance the higher down payment.

My Question: How much did black car fleets, dealers of hybrids, etc., contribute to the campaigns of those sponsoring this fiasco?

After consultation with users, fleets, and drivers - including demonstrations of the new vehicle types - the Mayor's Office of Long-term Planning and Sustainability and the TLC have identified several models that will have widespread acceptance, including: Toyota Camry Hybrid, 33mpg (city); Toyota Highlander Hybrid, 27mpg (city); Nissan Altima Hybrid, 35 mpg (city); and Mercury Mariner Hybrid FWD, 34 mpg (city). Other models may include: Lexus Rx400h AWD, Ford Escape Hybrid AWD, and Toyota Prius.

My Comment: It appears GM was not a proud sponsor of this campaign. If GM was included in the list, it would have been a proud sponsor of the campaign. If for some reason GM is a sponsor of this campaign, then I am overlooking an angle that involves GM. It's as simple as that.

If government would simply stop micro-managing the problem, the free market would find a solution, sooner, rather than later. It's Getting Harder (and more expensive) To Keep On Truckin', and government is the primary reason. Misguided ethanol policies, the war in Iraq, and debasement of the US dollar all contribute. It's disappointing to see this non-solution from Michael Bloomberg.

Comments

[Dwaters:]

Wow. No compassion whatsoever for a man who works hard but has fallen on lean times? Yes, he should have saved more when things were good. And yes, government assistance will likely make the problem worse in the long run. Even so, Robert Griffith made $11,000 last year and it's hard to raise a family on that no matter how many prom dresses or similar luxuries one gives up. It seems low to pick on a man in a situation like that.

2008 Mar 05 04:42 PM

[User 142738:]

Something tells me Michael Shedlock couldn’t afford the health insurance premiums he would need if he said this stuff to truckers face–to–face instead of blogging anonymously.

Take this commentary tripe to one of the many anti–American sites out there.

2008 Mar 05 06:37 PM

[Mickey:]

You sound a little harsh against the truckers out here Michael. I dare you to get off your fatt butt and away from your "cushy" job and try to survive out in the real world. Diesel (and fuel) prices will be the front runner in driving (no pun) this country right into our depression.

2008 Mar 05 09:22 PM

[User 108022:]

Having lost my independent local trucking business around the Miami area after 31 years maybe some government help would have been useful. Like arresting all the illegals who transport without insurance or valid licenses within the Miami community. Called the state and locals many times and they never helped.

2008 Mar 06 09:52 AM

[ETF STER:]

Truckers like myself are business owners. If you don't pass the increased costs on to the customer, then you go out of business. I know it sounds cruel, but you are in business to make money. If you don't make money, you go out of business, and are replaced with another business owner that can make money.
I have worked in the transportation industry since 1976 and have seen recession and inflation. There is nothing new here, there are good business owners and lousy business owners. The free market system weeds out the poor business owners and replaces them with better business owners.
It is an efficient, though unfeeling system, deal with it!

2008 Mar 06 09:58 AM

[svkoho:]

I used to be a trucker and I have sympathy for anyone losing their job and I do not believe the government or market forces can solve a problem which has no solution. Trucking is massively subsidized(who pays for the highways? Highway damage is proportional to the 5th power of the axle weight and truckers pay taxes that are a tiny fraction of the damage they cause to roads. Long distant trucking should end to be replaced by rail or barge which is far more efficient from a transportation energy expenditure perspective.DUH. Trucks will always have a purpose which should be the last mile or 5. If trucks had to pay their fair share of damage to the infrastructure, they would have been gone decades ago. I say expand rail traffic and phase out long haul trucking immediately.

2008 Mar 06 10:18 AM

[cyaker:]

People like Shedlock send up smoke so that the common people don't connect the dots. It's seems that it is ok for taxpayers to bail out the banks but the truckers are on their own.

Shedlock doesn't want anybody connecting his comments with these comments by Lawrence York "Once Again, the American Taxpayer Picks Up the Bill" because if they did maybe somebody would be in jail and the game would grind to a halt.

seekingalpha.com/artic...

2008 Mar 06 12:43 PM

[User 151829:]

Long distance trucking has no future. Oil is in short supply and will continue to be for the foreseeable future. A majority of this fuel must be imported and is thus a national security risk. Trucks are very inefficient over long distances. They use too much fuel whose costs are passed onto the consumer. Burning fossil fuels is also detrimental to the environment and causes global warming. We must as a country make a societal shift to rail transportation for long distance freight transportation and passenger transportation whether it be within a city or across the nation. Trucking will always have a purpose, however as the above poster suggested, only for short and medium distances.

2008 Mar 06 02:50 PM

[VintonCounty:]

Re the New York limos, this is another instance of politicians saying we must accept their preferences rather than following our own. Other examples are auto fuel (octane and must contain ethanol), CAFE, toilets (water per flush), shower heads (minimum flow resistance), lawn mowers (deadman handle), wood finishes (no oil vehicle), cash movements (must be less than $10,000) and cigarette ads (verboten). A complete list would probably exceed a thousand pages. The explanation is that Americans are effeminate sheep, afraid to insist on making their own choices.

2008 Mar 06 04:46 PM

[Kunst:]

My comment: What a jerk!

2008 Mar 09 12:20 AM