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I have seen trucking make sufficient noise to shut down the USA via cb radio way back when desiel was 1.99 a gallon. If it broke the magic 2.00 we would park it all.It was a very bad time back then. We would carry 300 gallon tanks or more and 2.00 was very serious money every thousnad miles or so (Anywhere from 24 hours/team to 2 days single or.. up to 5 days regional including 8 hours idle time per rest) that is about 4 miles to gallon more or less and 20 years ago.My last truck on 9-11 paid 4+ dollars PER gallon and still got 6 miles to the gallon, we were a team reefer set (Husband and Wife) and had way too many loads in demand. Our job was to grab late loads and whisk them in off single drivers we still carried 300 gallons of fuel and filled once every 24/hours regardless of fuel state.Take note: Those tanks got filled with good cetane desiel regardless of the price on that pump. IF it was 10.00/gallon tough... we take a fill up. Company can deal with it. If they at any time say dont fillup because it was too expensive... why we are unemployed and serving no useful purpose... time to go home any way we can.Way back when food for breakfast, a complete meal was 4.50 for everything. So much food it takes several plates to hold it all. Now that same food is one plate for 12.00 plus extras. We had a complete kitchen in the sleeper and cooked our own on the move skipping the truck stop completely. We would buy apples in Yakima Warehouses direct at .30/pound instead of walmart at 1.00 per pound.Now those apples are 1.40 or more per pound.Folks, there is only one solution. Have the shippers pay the price of freight and make it happen. The customers will pay for the food they need and everything else will stop selling so much.Eventually the cost of diesel will exceed income and bills and stop the truck.Tough. No trucks no shippie.I think they will start to try and work around this by shipping the apples 200 miles at a time across the USA using many trucks to Atlanta for example. Outrageous.Some time ago in these forums there was a special train that was produced. One that ran from Yakima to Albany NY for transloading onto trucks to the markets.That friends, is the key to our national ability to survive our food needs. Train it over and truck it down the street.Oh no... no rails? No rail docks? No choo choos? No room on the transcon?Well, tough. We need to make it happen.Oh my! No food?Now that is tough and not too pretty.I think the economy will strip the public of the ability to buy sufficient food per week leaving the rest to rot on the shelf.There will still be trucks. but they will not go very far and boy will they be expensive. If I was a owner operator now with a 600 CAT 379 Pete getting 6 miles/gallon I wont turn a wheel for less than 2.00 per mile and shipper pays fuel surcharge both ways.It's amazing how that two dollars get underfoot.Pay a truck, pay insurance, pay fuel, pay tags, pay the maintaince, pay the driver or drivers, pay the 10% fund required to protect catastrpohic breakdowns etc. I think 10 years ago you needed 1.10 per mile to turn a profit.Now you need GPS mileage to account for all miles from A to B and make it all payable none of that HHG mileage crap.One day I fear the trucks will stop in the USA. When they do, Gas first gone, food next and important supplies such as medicals third. Everything else will dry up within a month.Whose fault is that? The people who ripped up the railroad from all those nice warehouses? The people who stack everything into JIT and lie awake at night when one important part moves too slowly? The people who sent jobs over seas to China and Mexico that can work on much less cost? But now the west coast is filling up with shipping sitting at sea unable to unload for a time?HAH. We deserve it.
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