Is There a Fuel Crisis For Our Truckers?

Welcome to episode 11 of Truckers Have Feelings - and look at this right on time this week. Most weeks I never go to the pumps as my daughter or wife are usually the ones who take on this task in the past few months. Now I know the fuel prices have been out of this world this past year and you know years ago, I always say “back in the day” diesel was always cheaper than gas prices. But now the gas prices as you know are crazy but diesel, the very fuel that these truckers need to deliver the goods we need, are almost a dollar more than gas per litre here in Canada. Now get this…Im no expert when it comes to the processing of fuel … but to me and a lot of people I talk to, it seems the process in creating gas for vehicles is much longer than processing diesel fuel. I don’t know if I am right or wrong but that is the way it seems to most people. And as we all know if you want a product created in the rough it is usually always cheaper because the labour, the costs, the time is less than creating a premium product so why in the hell are the diesel prices so high. I was talking to a trucker yesterday and he actually told me about an older lady come up to him at one of his deliveries and give him crap for the high cost of groceries because he should know better since he is dropping it off to the store, so she thought. Now I realize this is kind of a rare case but the general public is complaining about the high costs of groceries including myself and while there are other factors we know nothing about as to why the prices of groceries and other goods are so high, higher fuel prices are creating a larger spike in the cost of our goods than a lot of people realize. However in saying that who is going to pay the cost of fuel for these truckers to deliver the very goods that we need - We are - the consumer - the hiking of groceries prices and other products is not going to be absorbed by the companies, they turn around and they put the responsibility on the customer to pay by hiking the prices. Now really unfortunately it just makes good business sense for the companies to do this but what about the truckers: The owner operators of the trucks are getting hit hard with the increasing fuel prices and who takes care of them? They get a fuel surcharge back in their pockets but it is still not always enough but people think it is. Think of it this way - you go to the store and buy a pop for say $2.50, now years ago that same pop cost $1.00 , well actually I remember when I paid 25 cents for a pop but that’s another story …. but today you get to take the empty bottle and get a recycling refund of 5 cents - not much profit or incentive right? The fuel surcharge that I speak of is similar in the analogy except the surcharge is a bit higher but still not enough to cover the cost of the extra fuel prices. To put it in better perspective, at some point in the past not so long ago, roughly a year ago, lets say it cost a driver $400 to fill the tank of his or her rig but today that same tank will cost anywheres from $800 to $1000 and they have to fill their tanks minimum weekly so you do the math on that one. Now maybe for fuel surcharge they will see $100 per fill up but the extra cost is now $400 to $600 more than ever. Now talk about good business sense , that formula makes absolutely no sense. Now don’t take these numbers I quote as exact numbers because its been a long time since I’ve actually been in the business and the formula for determining fuel surcharge I am sure has changed a lot. But here is the point Im trying to make, these truckers are going up and down our roads delivering the goods that we need , there are less people coming into the industry that actually stay …. The owner operators of these units have to bank roll their fuel bill up front which means they need to have a line of credit, credit card to handle a purchase of roughly $4000 a month and that’s probably on a good month AND they also don’t get paid fuel surcharge back until their next pay which could be two weeks or even up to four weeks or sometimes even more, just depends. Then when they do get paid it would be about $500 to $1000 fuel surcharge maybe for the particular period of time that we are talking about - that two week period or that one month period. Now the point is they take a loss for the extra costs of fuel up front, therefore they hope to make more revenue to the truck but to do that they need to be able to drive more so you can quickly see the crazy circle of never ending crap these truckers go through especially when it comes to the fuel side of the business and the fuel is …. Well lets face it basically the blood of the operator - NO FUEL NO MOVING TRUCKS! Now one last point to make is assume the trucker runs the same distance this year as last, they still need to make more money to cover extra costs which they have no control over so the trucking company has no choice but to increase the delivery costs to their customer who then pass it on to you the consumer - I mean as I said before it just makes good business sense. But honestly what is the solution? Well when you really start to think the whole situation, the whole system of what we are talking about here. First thing that pops in your mind is probably Fuel Prices need to come down … that would be a great start especially for these truck drivers and that seems to be the correct answer but will the companies pass those savings on to the consumer if the fuel prices actually come down - will that ever happen? Or will things just continue to stay where they are? Unfortunately as a consumer we have no control over any of this and while that’s not a discussion for this show but it is something to think about. Thanks for listening to this episode Truckers Have feelings - I will talk to you in our next episode next Sunday. In the meantime be careful when travelling on the roads because this time of year in our area of the world we will soon have to be concerned about the ice on the roads. Take care and we will talk to you next week.