Commentary: 3 Things to Be Thankful For
Deborah Lockridge
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Deborah Lockridge
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A trucker once told me this joke:
What do you get when you put a dozen truck drivers in a basement?
Answer: A whine cellar.
You don’t have to be a driver to know there are plenty of things we can complain about in trucking: the high cost of equipment or insurance, shortages of drivers and technicians, the increasing barrage of federal regulations, higher taxes and highway tolls, litigation-hungry truck crash lawyers, or any one of a host of other issues we struggle with every day.
But it’s November, so in honor of Thanksgiving, I thought I would devote this space this month to a few things we could be thankful for.
1. Fuel prices.
It wasn’t that long ago that the industry was in a panic as diesel prices shot up above $3, above $4, and $5, and even higher in some places. But the past couple of years we’ve actually enjoyed relatively stable and relatively low fuel prices. U.S. Department of Energy figures show the average price of on-highway diesel in 2014 was $3.83 per gallon. That dropped to $2.71 last year, and as of mid-October the forecast was for it to average 2.31 for 2016. The forecast is calling for that to rise somewhat for 2017 to an average of $2.69, but still well short of the near-$4 average of 2012.
2. Trucks that drivers want to drive.
Truck and engine makers had their hands full in the previous decade figuring out how to meet EPA emissions mandates for particulate matter and NOx. We saw fuel economy and reliability go down. Now engineers and designers are able to devote time to improving fuel economy (driven partially by federal GHG emissions regulations, but providing a benefit to truck owners as well as to the environment). Uptime has been a major focus of these …Read the rest of this story
