Sunday, April 20, 2008

Apr 20, 2008 (St. Louis Post-Dispatch - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) — – For truck driver Jon Montgomery, the surge in the price of diesel is more easily measured in time than money.

Last week, his employer, Walkenhorst Transportation of Lee’s Summit, Mo., reset the maximum speed of his rig to 68 miles per hour from 75 to squeeze out a few extra miles per gallon. While he can still reach most posted speed limits, it now takes an extra 45 minutes to complete the 641-mile daily round-trip hauling auto parts from Nashville, Ill., to a Ford plant in Kansas City. That means Montgomery must leave home at 8:45 a.m. instead of 9:30 — with no extra pay.

“This is going to put every small trucking company out of business,” he said, filling his truck with $482 of fuel at the Mr. Fuel station off Interstate 70 in Foristell.

Similar refrains can be heard at truck stops everywhere as diesel prices soar to levels unimagined a year or two ago. According to AAA’s Daily Fuel Gauge Report, the average price of diesel rose to record levels Friday across the St. Louis area — $4.20 a gallon in the Metro East and $4 in the city of St. Louis and surrounding Missouri suburbs.

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Sunday, April 20, 2008

By Russ Corey TimesDaily

FLORENCE, Ala.- Charles Scott doesn’t know how some of his fellow independent truckers can afford to stay in business.

Scott has been a trucker for about 50 years and has seen many changes. What he sees today frightens him.

“A lot of truckers talk about getting out of the business,” Scott said. “If I had some of the bills I know some of the boys got - I truly don’t know how they make it.”

Independent truckers are struggling with steadily increasing diesel prices.

They’re also dealing with shippers that are not willing to pay the truckers a fuel surcharge, which supplements the amount of money shippers pay the driver to haul the freight.

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Diesel fuel hits $4.24 a gallon, up $1.30 in a year

By Michael Dresser | Sun reporter

April 19, 2008

For most Maryland drivers, the $4-a-gallon fill-up is still a dire prediction. But for those who depend on diesel to power their trucks and tractors and family cars, four-buck fuel has been a fact of life since February.

AAA Mid-Atlantic reported yesterday that diesel was selling for an average $4.24 - up $1.30 from a year earlier. Regular unleaded was up, too, to a record $3.40 a gallon. But diesel prices have risen at percentages far outstripping the cost of regular gasoline. Last year at this time, diesel cost only 6 cents more than gasoline.

There are many contributing factors, but market forces appear to be the No. 1 cause. Global demand for diesel is growing - more than it has for gasoline - and refinery capacity has lagged behind.
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ScienceDaily (Mar. 5, 2008) — A new study from a Japanese research group explains why we’re occasionally caught in traffic jams for no visible reason. The real origin of traffic jams often has nothing to do with obvious obstructions such as accidents or construction work but is simply the result of there being too many cars on the road.

The research, published March 4 in the New Journal of Physics, shows how model patterns, normally used to understand the movement of many-particle systems, have been applied to real-life moving traffic. The research shows that even tiny fluctuations in car-road density cause a chain reaction which can lead to a jam.

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ScienceDaily (Apr. 17, 2008) — Creating an improved aerodynamic shape for truck trailers by mounting sideskirts can lead to a cut in fuel consumption and emissions of up to as much as 15%. Earlier promising predictions, based on mathematical models and wind tunnel tests by TU Delft, have been confirmed during road tests with an adapted trailer. This means that PART (Platform for Aerodynamic Road Transport), the public-private partnership platform, has produced an application which can immediately be put into production.

It is expected that the cost of fitting aerodynamically-shaped sideskirts will be recouped within two years. Furthermore, the sideskirts can be fitted to approximately half the trucks currently in use in the Netherlands as the skirts can also be retrofitted.

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By Transport Topics 4/15/2008

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration said it intends to set new minimum standards for issuing learner’s permits to prospective commercial drivers and revise the knowledge and skills tests administered to people seeking commercial driver licenses.

The agency said it is proposing to set a minimum age for someone seeking a commercial learner’s permit; establish new tampering and fraud-prevention standards for the license and permit; adopt the skills and knowledge test used by the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators; and stiffen the legal requirements for applicants to require more documentation of a driver’s residency status.

FMCSA is accepting comment on the regulation until early June.

By Transport Topics 4/15/2008

Diesel fuel’s national average price broke the $4 barrier for the first time, jumping 10.4 cents to $4.059 a gallon, the Energy Department said Monday.

Gasoline, meanwhile, continued to soar, jumping 5.7 cents to a record $3.389 a gallon, leaving gas 58.3 cents higher than the same week last year, DOE said.

The diesel increase — the biggest since a 15.5-cent spike four weeks ago — was the latest in a series of sharp increases that left diesel $1.182 higher than a year ago and more than $1 higher than it was just six months ago.

Crude oil prices have soared in the past year, helping to push both diesel and gasoline pump prices higher. Oil closed at a record $111.76 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange Monday, topping last Wednesday’s record of $110.87, Bloomberg reported.

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by Transport Topics 4/15/2008

American Trucking Associations and the U.S. Army Reserve signed a recruiting partnership agreement they said will provide experienced truck drivers for the military and give career opportunities to truck drivers leaving the military.

The two groups will focus efforts on recruiting commercial vehicle drivers into the Army Reserve, and recruiting members of the Reserve and those transitioning from active duty to the Reserve into careers in the trucking industry.

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