The New Highway Guerrillas

When times are flush, the life of a trucker can be good--not easy, but good.

Highballing down a turnpike in his own $30,000 rig, the open countryside flashing by, the air conditioning and stereo on, old buddies to meet at the next truck stop, a good load in back and the promise of maybe $20,000 in profit at the end of the year--a man could do worse. But times now are anything but flush, and the truckers have suddenly turned into the angriest and most disruptive group of protesters in the nation.

What could cause the truckers, normally strong law-and-order men, to become a bunch of traffic-blocking guerrillas? The highway tie-ups that they organized last week were called to vent these gripes:

>> Lower speed limits: Truckers claim that their rigs run more efficiently at 65 m.p.h. than at the 55-m.p.h. limit already in effect in many states and slated to become the national standard. On the contrary, a General Motors computer study indicates that trucks burn 1 5% less fuel going 50 to 55 m.p.h. than when doing 70. The real issue in the cabs is not fuel economy but money in the wallet. Most hired drivers are paid by the mile, not the hour; the 400,000 who pilot their own rigs must try to haul as many loads as possible in a week. Averaging 55 rather than 70, they can cover 150 fewer miles in a ten-hour driving day; at 16-c- a mile, that translates to $24 less every working day for a hired driver and, at 40-c- a mile, $60 less each day for an owner-operator. >> Fuel prices: Until three months ago, diesel fuel averaged around 27-c- per gal. Now it costs 45-c- to 51-c- and has gone as high as 80-c- at the pumps of at least one Ohio truck stop. Typically, a trucker grosses $300 hauling a load between Pittsburgh and Chicago and keeps $55 as profit. Rocketing fuel prices now slash that profit by $23. The truckers want the government to set a diesel-fuel ceiling of 35.9-c- per gal. Transportation Secretary Claude Brinegar and the Cost of Living Council have agreed to look into charges of price gouging by truck stops. -c- Fuel scarcity: When truckers say "Fill 'er up," they are calling for 100 more gallons; typically, tanks hold 120 to 140 gal.

Now many stations are limiting them to 50, 25 or even 10 gal. at a time. So the drivers must chase from truck stop to truck stop, wasting precious driving time, to keep their four-miles-to-the-gal-lon rigs running. The drivers want a generous allocation of fuel to the truck stops to keep them on the road.

These problems are no excuse for continuing illegal highway blockades. "Holding the public hostage because there is a fuel shortage would be totally irresponsible and counterproductive," says Thomas C. Schumacher Jr., managing director of the California Trucking Association. Such talk does not impress the truckers. One driver, sitting in the cab of a tractor-trailer that was blocking traffic approaching the Delaware Memorial Bridge last week, said: "We want Nixon and his people, when they turn on their television sets, to hear us."

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