Opinion: Awakening From the Dream

By George Michael

It was a dream. Speed limits were up, fuel was cheap, credit was easy and freight was plentiful. Then the crash of fuel prices going through the roof woke us up.

The fuel price crisis caught the government napping, according to Bill Richardson, the secretary of energy. The transportation industry has been comatose by comparison. Since the last fuel crisis, an event beyond memory for many, lenders and lessors have made “ownership” possible for thousands short on the skills needed even to drive a truck well, let alone manage the business of trucking.

The glam-truck magazines have idealized the trucker’s lifestyle. Glossy pullout sections feature huge, neon backlit trucks with garish paint schemes. Extensive coverage is given to truck beauty pageants, where contestants strive for the honor of having the most unconventional conventional. Readers could not but be envious of the prestige that attends the keeping of such deluxe equipment.

On the assembly line, truck builders augmented their “premium,” or “classic” models with more length, chrome, lights and horsepower to capitalize on the yearning for really well-to-do trucks. Lenders offered creative financing and longer terms to ease the burden of purchase. And many such trucks were purchased, and they all ran in the left lane.

What one sees, watching such trucks go by, is the ascendancy of style over substance. Thousands of owner-operators over-spec their trucks, apparently expecting that an extended hood will compensate for a lack of business sense; that speed and power will offset economy; that maximizing their miles will make up for break-even rates; and pride in the ride will pass for profit. Many fleets do likewise with company drivers, trading off a lesser paycheck for a big hood.

But now we have a crisis, and the chicken lights are coming home to rust.

In Wall Street vernacular, this would be called a market correction. Despite all the wailing and gnashing of teeth, it is a good thing. Good managers, of one truck or 100, will survive the crisis. Whatever attrition occurs will be consistent with the law of natural selection — the strong will survive. For every poor-to-marginal performer forced out of business because of an adverse business cycle, let us give thanks. There will be greater demand for survivors’ services, and let us charge accordingly.

Hopefully, when this crisis passes, chastened owner-operators will spend their hard-earned dollars on an auxiliary heater instead of extra marker lights, for more heat and less light. They’ll sleep better. Hopefully they will come to see that wheelbase is not the measure of a man, that in fact, smarter technology leaves a smaller footprint. The day may come again when manufacturers market the lowly cabover, reconfigured for comfort and performance. (Maybe they can even make it sexy.) Driving a shorter, lighter truck a little more slowly to conserve fuel would not diminish a man. On the contrary, the dollars saved from such conscientious operation might make a true macho classic — a Harley-Davidson — affordable.