Perfect Fuel Prices!

bametrucking · Mar 20, 2008

Five things are driving this business to the bleachers...

Bad drivers
This whole "mexican trucks" situation is smoke and mirrors... Swift and the rest of the "fatcats" have started purchasing mexican trucking companies... They are doing so (and lobbying to allow this) for one thing only... lower wages...

The lack of "willing" and knowledgable drivers in the USA has "forced" the big companies to do this... This is where a driver union would have helped if they really were looking for the drivers benefit...

Unregulated broker activity...
Full disclosure would go a long way... $10,000.00 bonds are ridiculous, hell two jobs amount to more than that. It makes it to easy for anyone to be a broker... Mortgage brokers, Comodities brokers... hell every broker out there has limits to how much they can charge... not freight brokers...

Overprotected insurance companies...
Why am I forced to use the same insurance company for all my trucks? The premiums are over the top... The wording on insurance is so convoluted that normal folks don't realize how many exculsions...

Fuel prices
Fuel regulations driven by the "greenies" have put us where we are... No drilling, no refining capabilities...

Pollution regaulations
Ultra low sulphur fuel... No idleng, No parking... when are they going to realize trucking is the backbone of this country...

Working Class Patriot · Mar 20, 2008

jasonb1 said: ↑

You say you(I want public pressure..yes) don't want public pressure on "congress". Isn't that the govenment? How many decades has congress debated opening ANWR. For over 20 years. The public already thinks that truck drivers are overpaid(You think so? If we are over paid in the public's eye, why is the perception "we are are always hustling our loads to make more money" If we're overpaid, we wouldn't be busting our rears) and you want a governmental debate (if those politicians want to stay in office they need to get off of their rear ends and fix their screw ups). It's been over 20 years without a result (Mostly due to a liberal congress) . FMCSA is already regulating truckers and brokers and could have this problem fixed in weeks. As far as going back and renegotiating, a mandated FSC will keep pace with any increase or decrease in prices making fuel the shippers responsibility. If you have ever seen a FSC chart you would know that it goes up with fuel prices (and you're happy with the FSC I take it), hence there is no renegotiation. As far as doable I guess your solution has been doing in congress (government) for over 20 years. I submit to the members of this forum that your proposal is the very lie(So I'm a lier too Heh...) that the trucking industry has been fed for the last 20 years and reason the O/O's are going broke now. The solution for now is to give the fuel problem to the shipper now with the help of the institution that is currently regulating us, not begging for open ended debate in congress (government).
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Shippers are like contractors my friend. They'll use a bottom feeder every chance they get. Why pay top dollar when the bottom feeder who is holding on by the skin of his nails will haul for less or worse, El bottom feeder has no insurance, no maintenance records, ect... I had a contractor call me up to discuss my rates. He asked if I had a FSC I said no. My rate is my rate. He said well don't you think that $80 per hour for a dump truck is too much? I said what do you want? He said how about $60 per hour. I said ok. Now I have a FSC of 25% or $20 per hour. He was P-od and hung up the phone on me.
Pass the cost on the shipper/contractors maybe or maybe not. Like someone posted earlier, have your authority-you have bargaining power. I see rate ranges on load boards. Believe me, I'll start on the high end and look beyond that load too. Sometimes you can run for x because you know that y will pay another rate and you average it out.
Most guys I know who running, laughed when I asked about FSC. They were like. nobody pays that. They learned to start high and know how much they need to run. Kind of like counting cards.

jasonb1 · Mar 20, 2008

Nobody pays FSC because there are guys like you that don't make them pay it. If every shipper had to pay and every truck had to collect the same FSC then O/O's would not be suffering now. FMCSA is already telling you how many hours you can run. FMCSA can make your competitors abide by the rules and make your shipper pay for his/her own fuel. This is not something that needs to be debated in congress (govenment) like where drilling is allowed. This is something that doesn't costs the taxpayer a thing. A standard regulated FSC will make your effective fuel cost $0.00. Please submit one verifiable fact that will show how reducing trucking companies effective fuel cost to $0.00 will not immediately end the fuel crisis.

Working Class Patriot · Mar 20, 2008

jasonb1 said: ↑

Nobody pays FSC because there are guys like you that don't make them pay it. If every shipper had to pay and every truck had to collect the same FSC then O/O's would not be suffering now. FMCSA is already telling you how many hours you can run. FMCSA can make your competitors abide by the rules and make your shipper pay for his/her own fuel. This is not something that needs to be debated in congress (govenment) like where drilling is allowed. This is something that doesn't costs the taxpayer a thing. A standard regulated FSC will make your effective fuel cost $0.00. Please submit one verifiable fact that will show how reducing trucking companies effective fuel cost to $0.00 will not immediately end the fuel crisis.(there is no fuel crisis there is Fuel mismanagement and lobbying that prevents the right of an oil company from extracting oil from verifiable wells)
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Question: How do I calculate/find diesel fuel surcharges? The Energy Information Administration does not calculate, assess, or regulate diesel fuel surcharges.
Fuel surcharges are negotiated privately by the shipper and the trucking company. EIA collects and disseminates weekly retail diesel fuel price data. Many shippers and truckers use that weekly retail price information in their fuel pricing formulas.
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http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/ask/prices_faqs.asp#diesel_surcharges

The FSC should be passed from the shipper to customer in negotiations likewise, truckers to shippers in negotiation. The guys I mentioned use a broker btw. He negotiates the rates as a whole rate that's why they don't get the FSC. It's all negotiated in the rate to become inclusive at the carriers' end according to these guys. Maybe it's the "charge" in Fuel Surcharge that gets people in a tizzy. UPS for example runs a 19% FSC currently. Delta Airlines has increased it's fares by $20. UPS calls it a Fuel Surcharge, while Delta calls it a Rate Enhancement. Which one appears like it's taking an advantage and which one appears like the company is in need of facilitation.

You're saying we need a "flat" mandatory FSC and I'm asserting that it won't work. Most people don't negotiate properly. And in the construction trucking biz (which I am leaving), any extra charge causes them to hang up and call the bottom feeders. It would be nice not to have to justify every *&%^% thing to people and in addition, they don't care about quality. They're just like us but the on the opposite end of the table. We want to perform as little as possible for a high return and they want as much as possible for as little disbursal as possible. That's why I'm against a "flat" FSC. If I encounter someone who absolutely wouldn't pay the FSC currently, why would they pay if it were a "flat" enhancement? Government does not have the manpower to oversee every shipper/carrier transaction in the process. I would rather play the game and rephrase my offer to make it look as though, they're coming out ahead. Sometimes the customer isn't always right, so why should we have government step in tie the hands of negotiation? Again, if you are an O/O with 100% authority, you have the power to say yes or no to any client/shipper.

What's next? Are you going to argue for a "flat" CPM as well???

Give me a rate scale and I'll negotiate from the top and I expect the client/shipper to start at the bottom. But that's not the issue here. The issue is Fuel cost. If we were Energy Independent we wouldn't be having this debate.

Ronnocomot · Mar 20, 2008

jasonb1 said: ↑

Don't worry brick, i'd never give you credit for the mandatory FSC. If fuel is what's making it difficult for us to stay in business, pass it on to the people who truly benefit from it. Hence, it is no longer trucker's problem. Freight rates have been depressed for decades, but truckers are going out business now because we have made the shippers fuel OUR fuel. As far as it being non-competetive and illegal that is ridiculous. Please come up with some kind of fact to support you idea. There are numerous examples of minimum charges being regulated. What happens if you pay $1.00 an hour? Have you ever heard of minimum wage? The purpose of this forum to create and debunk ideas. Support your idea with a fact please. FMCSA regulating an industry wide FSC is not non-competetive if everyone is competing under the same rules. You, Swift, JB, and Schneider under the same rules is what competition is. FMCSA mandates what hours you every trucking company can run. Is that non-competitive? FMCSA has the ability to regulate an industry wide standardized FSC that would no longer make fuel our problem.
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No it is not ridiculous. If you are asking someone else to pay for your fuel, they will want to get the best price will they not?

What does a gallon of diesel cost in Texas?
$3.58 in Bay City to $4.10 in Clyde
http://www.texasgasprices.com/index.aspx?fuel=D

How about New York?
How about $3.99 to $4.99 both in Hartsdale believe it or not.
http://www.newyorkgasprices.com/index.aspx?fuel=D

And Finally California,
$3.79 in Vallejo to $4.48 in Happy Camp
http://www.californiagasprices.com/index.aspx?fuel=D

Which price is the one folks are going to pay?

You set a price, it's collusion, and illegal

Skunk_Truck_2590 · Mar 20, 2008

jasonb1 said: ↑

The fuel prices are perfect. The reason people are crying about the price of fuel is because they are not passing the cost along to the shipper and consumer who are receiving the real benefits. Fuel prices are only a problem because there is not a standardized mandatory industry wide fuel charge! If there was it wouldn't matter if diesel went to $3000.00 a gallon because the shipper and consumer were paying for all of your fuel. Contact OOIDA and get them to help organize the drive to get legislation to nationalize a standard mandatory FSC. Without it trucking companies are paying the additional costs of fuel while shippers and consumers don't feel the pinch. The reason a strike won't work is because there is no final solution to a strike. The government won't just subsidize your fuel costs, and if you can't even get guys to stop hauling cheap, how are you going to get them to stay home when the rates go up due to a partial strike. The high price of fuel is only your problem if you pay it to haul a load and it is not passed on the the shippers and consumers who benefit.
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Jason, I don't know what country you are from but where I come from it's called America bud. As for the rest who say pass the price's on to consumer's, just keep one thing in mind. Thing's go up in price while wage's don't move. You are also a comsumer so when it goes up you'll be biting the bullet too. Screw that ####! the oil companies. They are the reason. They pocket billion's, not thousand's and million's but billion's every qaurter and they don't give a #### on giving their employee's 4 million dollar retirement funds. They are living top notch. Really, they are away from home just as much as a truck driver so if they brought this on then they can suffer from it just as much as all the rest of us and I hope like hell they do, the greedy ########!

TX_Proud · Mar 20, 2008

The Golden Rule: He With The Gold Rules

In this case, the oil companies have the black gold. It is unfortunate that they feel justified in raking in record profits, but in a market driven economy, that is the name of the game.

Did you know that as a country, we import the most crude oil from Canada? #2 is Saudia Arabia, #3 is Venezula, #4 is Mexico.

jasonb1 · Mar 20, 2008

Good point's both Ron's. Finally we can have a discussion. First, let us not forget that it is not "our" fuel. The fact that shippers have brainwashed you into believing that it is "our" fuel is THE reason we suffer now and are so opposed to any change of the status quo.
Second, we obviously could not have a "flat" FSC. It would be adjustable and on a sliding scale as the price of fuel fluctutes. I know that we are all sympathetic to the plight and difficulties of shippers and we all want them to get the best price possible on "their" fuel. A standardized mandatory FSC wille ensure that all shippers are also able to operate on an equal playing field since no shipper will again fall victim to broker hitting him for a FSC that another shipper doesn't have to pay. As far as the regional price differences go the answer is this. The FSC scale will be based on national averages published by EIA and posted by FMCSA. It is also possible to have regional FSC scales that is used in regions where prices are far above the normal average. We all wish America was not dependent on foreign oil but sadly that is not SOLUTION that can implemented immediately. This can. Please don't forget to post your own SOLUTIONS supported by fact. Without the exchange of ideas will have have nothing to put forward to correct the FUEL CRISIS if we do succeed in getting the country's attention when the trucks do stop running.

Working Class Patriot · Mar 20, 2008

jasonb1 said: ↑

Good point's both Ron's. Finally we can have a discussion. First, let us not forget that it is not "our" fuel. The fact that shippers have brainwashed you into believing that it is "our" fuel is THE reason we suffer now and are so opposed to any change of the status quo.
Second, we obviously could not have a "flat" FSC. It would be adjustable and on a sliding scale as the price of fuel fluctutes. I know that we are all sympathetic to the plight and difficulties of shippers and we all want them to get the best price possible on "their" fuel. A standardized mandatory FSC wille ensure that all shippers are also able to operate on an equal playing field since no shipper will again fall victim to broker hitting him for a FSC that another shipper doesn't have to pay. As far as the regional price differences go the answer is this. The FSC scale will be based on national averages published by EIA and posted by FMCSA. It is also possible to have regional FSC scales that is used in regions where prices are far above the normal average. We all wish America was not dependent on foreign oil but sadly that is not SOLUTION that can implemented immediately. This can. Please don't forget to post your own SOLUTIONS supported by fact. Without the exchange of ideas will have have nothing to put forward to correct the FUEL CRISIS if we do succeed in getting the country's attention when the trucks do stop running.
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Ok Jason now that we're not slinging snakes and arrows here.

(...)

Reserves on their own don't matter. What matters is the cost of getting the reserves. Shell's investment per barrel of oil and gas has increased fourfold in just three years, a period during which the oil multinational's output has not increased. The company displayed another chart showing the average spending of the big oil companies. Per barrel of hydrocarbons, spending rates were pretty static during the 1990s at between $5 (U.S.) and $6 a barrel. In 2003, the rate of investment began to escalate and is now shooting higher, rising at an alarming pace. Last year, the average investment per barrel was just shy of $15.
On top of that, you must load the daily cost of operating wells and pipelines and the colossal overhead of running a big oil company. Moreover, we know that the $14-to-$15-a-barrel average investment is just an average and it is rising. Every new barrel is a more expensive barrel because in order to get the oil, Western oil companies must push the technology envelope even further, into deeper water and more heavy oil, such as Alberta's oil sands. The only giant discovery of the past decade has been Tupi, the eight-billion-barrel oil field discovered offshore of Brazil in water depths of two kilometres.
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(...)

(...)

The high oil price is sucking cash into the pockets of national and multinational oil companies and the cash is needed. At the time of Big Oil's investment nadir at the turn of the millennium, Shell spent a net $1.5-billion on its business after deducting cash inflows from disposals. At that time, the oil industry was in survival mode, coping with $12 oil prices, but the investment famine was unsustainable and today, we are paying for it. The question is whether we will run into another bust cycle.
That can happen only if the West's big oil companies repeat their achievements of the 1970s and 1980s with a series of exploration successes, such as Brent and Forties in the North Sea and Prudhoe Bay. The worry is that today's spending is not delivering many more barrels, just more expensive barrels. The cheap barrels are out of reach in Iraq, Iran and Russia. It's not peak oil we have to worry about but oil inflation.
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(...)

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20080320.IBEUROPE20/TPStory/Business

jasonb1 · Mar 20, 2008

How soon can we implement a congressional debate and then an congressional agreement to get those additional cheap barrels here to bring fuel prices down? If it were that simple we would have done it 20 years ago when the debates on ANWR first began. The only semi-solid criticism anyone has put forth against a FMCSA mandated FSC has been that it may not get 100% relief to the trucker due to regional price differences. That may be but 98% relief today is better than the dream of 100% tomorrow. Let's say hypothetically we have a strike, we can put forth a regulated FSC for immediate relief to the majority. If we get on TV with a strike what do we say we want, a SOLUTION that costs the taxpayers nothing, or a debate in congress where we hope they come up with a solution to benefit the trucking industry.

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