Dawn was breaking, and the tractor-trailers massed like a herd of cattle were stirring awake. Exhaust stacks snorted; low gears groaned into motion.
At truck stops like Sapp Bros. Travel Center in Commerce City, this is what you wake up to instead of birdsong. Lately the sound has grown more discordant, even to truckers’ ears.
If you think you’re unhappy about paying $3.20 a gallon at the gas pump, ask a long-haul driver about the price of diesel fuel.
Ask Dan O’Neill.
“It’s hitting us big time,” said O’Neill, who drives 150,000 miles a year out of Grant City, Mo. “I did some research, and in the 25 years I’ve been driving, fuel costs are up 430 percent. And the per-mile rate we’re paid (about $1.85) really hasn’t changed so much.”
Diesel has hit $3.90 a gallon. O’Neill reckons he’ll be paying $5 a gallon by Labor Day.
“I hope I’m wrong, but that’s where I think it’s heading,” he said. “I’ve already seen $4.20 in places. I just don’t see the end of this.”
O’Neill hauls meat and produce. He had pulled off Interstate 70 at Quebec Street and stopped at Sapp, waiting in the chill air for the garage to open. He needed a tire fixed before unloading in Denver. Then it was back on the road for a delivery to Salt Lake City. After that a run to Idaho to pick up potatoes, which he would take to Kansas City.
“Those potatoes are going to cost a lot more than they did just six months ago,” he said. “It’s the fuel costs. I understand it hurts the consumer, but I’m a consumer too.”
Inside the truck stop’s restaurant, Jon Boehmer sipped coffee and watched the outrage-du-jour on TV. It was a videotape of a teenage girl being thrashed by another girl.
Boehmer could relate.
“They’re kicking our shorts,” said the Lapeer, Mich., driver. “I remember in 1972 when fuel went up from 24 cents a gallon to 56 cents overnight. The numbers are different, but the situation is the same. Fuel’s our biggest expense and always will be.”
Do the math: A typical 18-wheeler carries dual 125-gallon fuel tanks. Filling them with diesel? Right now, that’s roughly a mortgage payment.
Spend long hours in a truck cab, and you have lots of time to sort out the world. But the drivers I talked to Tuesday see no easy fix to their problem. Which is our problem.
Some think the answer is more domestic drilling. Others gripe that freight brokers, the middlemen who set up the hauling deals, are shorting them on the per-mile rate.
“Sometimes freight gets brokered two or three times,” said Neil Morrison, an independent hauler from Levelland, Texas. “Everyone’s taking a piece of the pie.”
But fuel remains the big bite. Earlier this month, some truckers staged a slowdown to raise awareness.
“I did my part,” Morrison said. “I slowed down to 45 mph for a couple of days.”
How much good the gesture did, he didn’t know.
Eduardo Garcia drives for L&R Pallet Service of Denver. He’d love to buy his own rig and go independent. That notion is on hold.
“It’s just not worth it right now,” Garcia said. “The senior guys are saying don’t try it. So I’m just going to sit tight.”
O’Neill, the Missourian who won’t see his wife and kids for a week, feels utterly squeezed.
I asked him at what point he would just have to park his White Freightliner. He heaved a sigh. “You really can’t,” he said. “You have to feed your family.”
William Porter’s column runs Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Reach him at 303-954-1977 or wporter@denverpost.com.
