Life on the Road – Trucking News Blog

Some time back I received an email from our “Fuel Guy”.  It said, in part.

“.. has managed to negotiate a new lower diesel price at XYZ and ABC truckstops.  We are now paying “cost + 2 cents.”  .. now has the best deal of any owner-operator based fleet.

However, to get and keep this exciting new pricing, we promised to push considerably more gallons their way.  Company trucks, you are directed to use XYZ and ABC to the exclusion of everyone else, except in an emergency.   Owner-operators, we request that you also purchase your fuel at XYZ or ABC.  You’ll never get a better deal.”

I’d figured such a program existed.  I’d never benefited from it myself but I knew it was “out there”.  I have a buddy who has such a deal.  He told me REPEATEDLY in times past how he managed to save HUNDREDS of dollars a tank. (back when diesel was five dollars a gallon this was believable..maybe)

I was in a WXY truckstop once, in Amarillo Texas, on I-40.  I somehow got to talking to the manager.  He offhandedly remarked that they pumped a million gallons of diesel a DAY.

I could believe it.  They had Fuel Tankers lined up, day and night, waiting to unload. Of course this was back before the Democrats destroyed the economy, I doubt they’re doing near so well now.  In fact I heard that that chain went bankrupt.

The email got me to thinking.  Two cents a gallon huh?  (Assuming you can believe them, which I don’t, but let’s go with it for argument’s sake)  That’s twenty thousand dollars a DAY.  Not bad in my opinion.  Volume.

Still  at such a low mark up for fuel the truckstops try to make up for it by charging outrageous prices for everything else. They have this captive audience right?  Ten Dollars for a shower, Twenty bux for a meal, Double price for just about anything in the “convenience” store, as compared to a “big box” store.   Some of them even charge for parking.  The trucking companies save money on fuel, the drivers pay MORE money to just get by. Heck of a deal for the company.  Sux for the drivers.

The guys in the office don’t see it that way.  Would you expect them too?

Sadly this spells the end of the mom and pop’s.  How can they compete?  They don’t have near the volume of the big chains so they have to pay MORE for their fuel on a per gallon basis.  Consequently they have to sell it for more.

The big chains are siphoning away all their business.

Additionally the Big Chains are “oh so reluctantly” accepting a zillion rules and regulations that “make their job harder”.  Sure it is.  What’s actually happening is that they’re , lobbying congress and erecting “barriers to entry”. A fee or regulation that might be insurmountable to a small company is negligible to a large one.  One thing a big, fat, lethargic, corporation hates is a small nimble company.  The big corporation can’t keep up.  Hence they and their buddies in government, the “regulators”, create rules and regulations that freeze out the competition.   Funny how that works.

For extra points consider why General Electric is in Favor of Waxman-Markey.

But back to the Mom and Pops.  It’s Sad.  I like mom and pops.  Better patronize them when and if you can.  In another few years they’ll be nothing but a memory.