The sudden surge in diesel prices has forced trucking companies and schools alike to pass on the cost to their customers and students in an attempt to make ends meet and keep their businesses afloat.
“It’s totally beyond your control,” Steve Cagle trucking company operation manager Walker Cagle told ABC 31 on Monday, March 7th.
“We have to raise the cost of what we do, which is going to increase the cost of everything we transport and everything the consumers ultimately buy,” Cagle explained.
“Our drivers are spending $700 to $800 per stop when just a few months ago that was $300. It has dramatically increased in the past month,” he continued. Cagle’s company hauls refrigerated goods across the Southeast, Midwest and Northeast.
“All you can do is adjust to it and move in sync with it,” College said, adding that the company has upped their preventative maintenance and reviewed the conditions of their trucks in order to keep their fleet in the best shape possible to get the most mileage out of their diesel.
“It’s pretty tough,” said truck driver and owner operator Mike Perkins to KPIC News at a truck stop in Oregon.
“Luckily I haul for a company that does charge extra fuel surcharges to try to cover the cost of the extra fuel. But that just means the consumer has to pay it in the end. I hold 300 gallons of fuel, and the last fuel I got was in California. It was $5.86 a gallon.”
“The fact of the matter is, these escalating prices will get passed on to consumers and the prices of goods,” said Jana Jarvis, President of the Oregon Trucking Associations. “And that’s just what’s happening. You’re seeing it on your grocery store shelves and everything you’re purchasing lately. We’re seeing inflationary impacts on all kinds of consumer goods.”
And trucking companies aren’t the only ones passing on the costs – some smaller trucking schools say they’ve had to raise their class prices to keep up with the rising cost of diesel.
“We have to do a fuel surcharge, so that’s going to definitely affect our raising the prices of the schools, raising the prices of our contracts that we’re doing. It’s an overall effect for everybody,” said Christelle Tillerson-Nelson, owner of Anbeyon Truck Driving School in Flint, Michigan to Fox 66.