Who could blame them with rising fuel prices that find diesel fuel that has reached or exceeded four dollars a gallon in at least seventeen states, something has to change. For an average driver (owner / operator) that pays six to eight hundred dollars in insurance on his truck each month, these fuel prices mean a very tight profit margin for each load carried. Consider the fact that many of the truck drivers who haul motorcycles all week long, also ride them all through the weekend and this translates down to everyone in the industry.
Officials from the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association are encouraging truckers to find options to a strike. The trade group represents the interests of more than 160,000 small business trucking companies and drivers. One thing they are trying to do is get the Federal Government and the lawmakers involved. They’d like to see surcharges being charged to shippers get back to the people who paid for the gas and not just get folded into the companies that negotiate the shipments. Others call for the federal and state governments to form an oversight committee for truck insurance and would additional like to see the federal and state fuel taxes suspended until the economy recovers.
One thing is for sure, even a day without interstate commerce and we’ll fell it in our local communities everywhere!