Why High Diesel Prices Affect You

Alabama Mobile They hit you in the pocketbook even if your car uses unleaded gasoline.

by Steve Alexander

Published: Thu, March 13, 2008 - 6:30 pm CST

The cost of diesel is even higher than gasoline prices.
In our area, the average price for diesel is $3.84 a gallon.
And high diesel prices affect more people than you might think.
It's easy to understand how high diesel prices affect truckers.
Their big rigs run on the fuel.
Chris Allen is an independent trucker, which means he has to pay the cost of diesel himself without help from a national company.
Allen says, "The more it (the price of diesel) goes up, the less we make. If it gets much worse, its going to be tight. A lot of people are folding and going under because of it."
Gary Hanson belongs to a small company, but he can't understand why diesel prices are higher than gasoline prices.
Hanson says, "When you make a gallon of gasoline, the first by-product off of it is diesel. And they used to throw it away. Now, (diesel is) forty to fifty cents more than a gallon of gasoline."
But if you think you shouldn't be concerned about diesel prices because your car is powered by gasoline, you're wrong.
The high cost of diesel fuels affects all of us.
If a trucking company has to pay more to deliver, for instance, candy bars to a store, you can bet the price of the candy bar is going to go up.
Hanson adds, "It raises everything you buy in a grocery store or anything you do. Any goods you buy, it affects them because the trucking companies are having to raise their prices to cover themselves so they can stay in business."
Truckers may feel they are victims of high diesel prices, but John Rollins really is a victim.
Rollins, a trucker from Georgia, says thieves "just stole my fuel yesterday in Kentucky."
Rollins says he was sleeping in his rig at a truck stop at the time and didn't even realize the diesel was stolen until he started driving.
Rollins says the thieves "siphoned it out of there, both burrows, so that was like 210 gallons. I think that price that came up over $600. I'm scared to go to sleep. I don't know where to park at."

Find the cheapest gas (unleaded or diesel) where you live:
Alabama
Florida
Mississippi

WKRG.com » News Stream » Alabama