Diesel Prices Remain Unstable, Truckers Make Changes

Fluctuating diesel prices have some truck drivers making changes to keep a profit, with some even choosing to leave the business.


“The rates are outrageous and they’ve been like that for years,” said John Johnson, of St. Albans, W.Va. He previously owned a flatbed that he leased to a company in Chicago. The company would find jobs and contact him with loads to pick up and deliver. In return, he paid the company 10 percent of the profit.


“In my part, I would try to run anywhere from $1.25 to $1.29 a mile,” Johnson said. “These people (the companies hiring drivers) are going in and paying 75 cents a mile.”


Self-employed truck drivers are being hit harder by fuel costs, causing some drivers to find employment with a company. According to the 2008-09 edition of the Occupation Outlook Handbook on the Bureau of Labor Statistics, self-employed drivers made up 9 percent of the 3.4 million tractor-trailer drivers in 2006. The bureau also projected employment for truck drivers in 2016 to be 3.6 million drivers, an increase of eight percent.


“I believe the increase in prices affect self-employed drivers more than company drivers,” said Calvin Bench of Hurricane, W.Va. He drove for a company for 34 years and was self-employed for six years. Within the past month, he returned to a company that hauls chemicals, because the increase of fuel prices “demolished” his profit as a self-employed driver, he said.


“I gained no profit for a year due to high diesel costs,” Calvin Bench said. Vacations and eating out were among the things that he had to cut back on to save money. He also had to stay on the road longer to help make up for loss profit. After driving so much, the amount of fuel used would eventually level out and there would not be as much of a loss, but not much gain either, he said.


Bud Bench, Calvin Bench’s brother from Pittsburg, Kansas, has been driving a flatbed tractor-trailer for 25 years for Slay Industries. He said he does not have to worry about diesel prices as much because the company buys the drivers’ fuel.


Instead of finding employment with a company like the Bench brothers, Johnson left the business last year after driving for 37 years, when diesel prices started to increase over $5 a gallon locally causing him to lose money.


“Gas prices went clear over $6 a gallon and I couldn’t afford it,” Johnson said. “After it hit $4, I was spending $2,500 to $3,000 a week in fuel and should have been spending only $1,000.”


The furthest he would travel was to Arizona because other western states would not pay as much per mile, and he would lose money because of that too. After quitting the business, he eventually sold his truck, after someone made an offer that he could not turn down, he said.


Each driver said their truck averaged five to seven miles per gallon, which cost them $400 to $600 a day for fuel. “When you go to fill up a big truck, it’s anywhere from 200 gallons to 300 gallons,” Johnson said. “Each (truck) I had, had 125 gallon tanks (on each side). Some guys have 150 gallon tanks on each side.”


On top of the price truckers are paying for fuel, they also have to worry about oil changes every 10,000 to 15,000 miles, which costs a few hundred dollars, a service check-up every three or four weeks and the trucks have to be greased every weekend as well, Johnson said.


The trucks also require tires that cost around $300 each. Johnson used 10 tires for the truck cab, costing him $3,000 for tires each time they were changed. That was not including the tires for his trailer. Most tractor-trailers use a total of 18 tires, depending on whether or not the truck is a Bobtail or including a trailer. The Bobtail Insurance for Johnson was around $500 a week.


“There ain’t nothing you can really do, but run it back and run 50 mph,” Johnson said about saving fuel. “There’s a lot of trucks running 55 mph, but they’re not really saving anything.” The trucks also burn five to six gallons of fuel during the driver’s idle time at night.


Some drivers change the type of burners they use in their trucks, so that only one or two gallons of fuel will be used nightly while they idle, he said.


Fuel surcharges are also being added to delivered products to help prevent drivers from losing money from fuel prices. “The companies supply a fuel surcharge allowing the drivers to receive back one-third of the money spent on fuel,” Calvin Bench said.


“A fuel surcharge is a fee that can be added to the freight charges, and they don’t require governmental approval and you do not need to file an application with DOT to implement a fuel surcharge,” according to America’s Independent Truckers’ Association Inc. web site.


Even though Johnson left the business because of lost profits, he is thinking about returning to the business because he still made more money driving than he does with his current job. He wants to purchase four or five trucks and flatbeds, hire drivers of his own and start his own trucking company.


The current national average price of diesel as is $2.59, according to AAA’s Daily Fuel Gauge Report released Tuesday morning. That is an eight cent increase from last week and 22 cent increase from May. The highest recorded average price for diesel was $4.84 in July 2008. The current average price in West Virginia is $2.65, 11th highest in the country. Hawaii ranked first, with prices at $3.88.


Although the current prices are low compared to last year’s average price of diesel, the price is more than twice the amount it was 10 years ago. In June 1999, the average price was around $1.06 a gallon. Earlier that year, in January, February and March, the cost of diesel was below a dollar a gallon, according to Energy Information Administration web site.


“Right now it’s kind of an iffy, iffy guess,” Johnson said about whether diesel prices will continue to increase. The EIA web site projects that the average diesel price in 2010 will be $2.67.