Fuel Price Effects on the Trucking Industry and Citizens

Diesel fuel is by far and away the “life blood” of the motor carrier industry. On average, motor carriers consume over 38 billion gallons of diesel fuel to move over 10 billion tons of freight annually. Diesel fuel represents the highest expense of a trucking company other than labor costs and can account for up to 25% of the total operating costs of a single business.

There are not many industries that feel the direct effects of an ever changing fuel market more than the trucking industry. Due to the fact that over 80% of cities in the US receive their goods exclusively by truck, any spike in diesel fuel prices can translate to higher costs for all product delivered by trucks.

Over the past few years we have been paying some of the highest diesel fuel prices in history, which has sparked more interest in renewable fuels. There has been action taking place in the trucking industry since 2006 to transition to ultra low sulfur fuel to support the next generation of diesel engines, which will be designed to reduce total emissions.

We, as every day working citizens of this great country, have seen fuel prices, not just diesel, fluctuate up and down more times than we can count over the last few years. It hurts our wallets every time we see these prices jump $.30+ on holiday weekends when we are forced to spend the money if we want to travel, or just plain go to work.

How does it make sense that fuel prices can jump by this amount over night? Did every gas station receive deliveries of brand new more expensive fuel to their tanks between the time we went to bed to the time we woke up? The answer is no.

We all know how unfair this practice is, but there’s not much we can do about it. Unfortunately, we must pay these higher prices to travel to where we need to go. Our only other option is to cancel those travel plans and stay at home. The whole country would benefit as a whole if there was a system put in place by the government to form a single national fuel standard to protect us against these hefty fuel spikes that we currently are forced to live with in today’s society.

I think we can all agree that it would be nice to have a few extra bucks in our pockets and it would also help our piece of mind knowing that the prices of fuel would not jump $.30+ from one day to the next.