Thread: Truckers Clog New Jersey Turnpike in Price Protest (Update3)

Truckers Clog New Jersey Turnpike in Price Protest (Update3)

By Chris Dolmetsch

April 1 (Bloomberg) -- Truckers clogged the New Jersey Turnpike and other highways today, slowing traffic to as low as 20 mph (32 kph) as part of a nationwide protest against surging diesel fuel prices, a spokesman for the highway said.

Trucks moved slowly at various points along the 148-mile (238-kilometer) turnpike this afternoon, and about 200 drivers gathered at the Vince Lombardi Rest Area in Bergen County, said Joe Orlando, a spokesman for the New Jersey Turnpike Authority. The highway has a maximum speed limit of 65 mph.

``It's time to say, enough's enough,'' one of the protest's organizers, Brian Cunningham, 42, owner of Wolf Creek Logistics, a 20-truck company based in Mount Vernon, Illinois, said in a telephone interview. ``Drivers are going broke every day.''

Diesel fuel at U.S. pumps averaged $4.02 a gallon through yesterday, up 42 percent from a year earlier, according to AAA, an advocacy group for motorists. The trucking industry is projected to spend $135 billion on diesel fuel this year, an increase of $22 billion from a year earlier, according to the Arlington, Virginia-based American Trucking Associations.

The ATA, which represents about 37,000 U.S. drivers, last week called on President George W. Bush to lower prices by releasing fuel from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, establishing a national diesel standard and allowing exploration of off-limits areas rich in oil.

Legislation Sought

The Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association, a trade group representing about 160,000 truckers, said it is working with federal lawmakers on legislation to ensure that middlemen such as freight brokers and logistics firms pass on surcharges to drivers to compensate for higher fuel prices.

The association, which is barred from calling on truckers to participate in shutdowns or strikes under federal law because it is a trade group, said it doesn't know how many of its members participated in today's actions.

``The mood of truckers is of unconceivable frustration,'' Todd Spencer, executive vice president of the Grain Valley, Missouri-based group, said in a telephone interview. ``The frustration mounts even more when they run into instances where a shipper paid a fuel surcharge and a middleman simply pockets it. We contend this is a fraud not only on the trucker but on the shipper and the public because higher transportation costs ensue but nobody gets the benefit of that.''

`Just Getting Going'

Cunningham, a trucker for 21 years, said he estimated that about 100,000 of the nation's approximately 500,000 independent drivers had shut down their rigs today, with protests going on in every state.

``It's just getting going,'' Cunningham said. ``I traveled about 27 miles to work today and there were trucks on the road. You're not going to get all of them out of their trucks at once. I think it's going to come together. There's still some negativity, guys watching to see what's going on. But the price of fuel has them all drained.''

A gallon of diesel fuel has sold for more than the same amount of gasoline since July. Gasoline inventories last week were 9.9 percent above the five-year average, according to the Energy Department, while stockpiles of so-called distillates -- including diesel and heating oil -- fell to their lowest since June 2005.

Summonses Issued

New Jersey State Police issued some summonses to truckers who tried to slow down traffic on the turnpike, said Lieutenant Gerald Lewis.

``Everything is fine, we haven't had any problems since late this morning,'' Orlando, the turnpike spokesman, said at mid- afternoon. ``It all seemed to stop around the time with their rally at the rest area, which we're happy about.''

Three truckers were ticketed for slowing traffic on Interstate 55 by driving at low speeds three abreast of the highway outside Chicago, while more than 50 rigs idled near the Port of Tampa in Florida, the Associated Press reported.

It's not clear how long the protests will last, though there will probably be more if prices don't drop, Spencer said.

``I'd like to see it last the rest of the week, maybe go back to work on Friday if we can get somebody to talk to us and listen to us,'' Cunningham said. ``Nothing will change overnight but we need something done in the near future.''

To contact the reporter on this story: Chris Dolmetsch in New York at cdolmetsch@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: April 1, 2008 15:55 EDT

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We all had better stock up on food and necessities.