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Letters to the Editor: Diesel Prices, Truckers’ Strike, Congestion Pricing
These letters appear in the April 14 print edition of Transport Topics. Click here to subscribe today.
Diesel Prices
I want to know why diesel is so much more expensive than gasoline. Diesel is a byproduct of gasoline. It should be cheaper. I haven’t seen an article on this issue in any of the magazines or newspapers.
Truckers — especially the owner-operators — are drowning as they try to keep the products coming to a store near you and everyone else. I know, because my husband is a trucker.
What is it going to take to correct this awful problem?
People think truckers have it made. Well, I’m here to tell you they do not, unless they have their home paid off, no vehicle payment and someone buying their groceries for their family. I honestly don’t see that myself.
It’s a shame that our government leaders have let this problem get out of hand.
Joyce Starkey
McMinnville, Tenn.
Maybe it is about time the federal government looks into how much diesel is being exported out of the United States.
We need lower prices for diesel, and we need mandatory fuel surcharges. A lot of the brokers are not passing the fuel surcharges to the people paying for the diesel to haul the freight. You can look on any load board and see the moronic rates these people are giving.
Rodney Carr Sr.
Owner
Carr Transportation
Gansevoort, N.Y.
I believe that American Trucking Associations is jousting at windmills. If the government released every drop of oil in the strategic reserves, it wouldn’t be enough to carry this nation for more than a week or two at the most.
Exploration and drilling in the “off-limit” areas may help some. However, the environmentalists in our country have caused a mandate for ultra-low-sulfur diesel in our trucks, and so much of the oil from Alaska is of high-sulfur content and is, therefore, exported to China and Japan.
And there is one more thing to consider. The price of crude oil is established on the world market. The people in Brazil are paying the same for oil as the folks in Boise, Idaho. We think that it all begins and ends here in America, but we are but a small piece of the big picture.
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