The Low Road to Protest

By Susan Tifft

Bullets and rocks fly as truckers try to block new taxes

It started out as a nationwide protest against higher fuel taxes and highway-user fees for trucks. But within hours, violence eclipsed the issues. Shortly after 11 p.m. on the first day of the Independent Truckers Association (ITA) strike, George Franklin Capps, 34, a Teamster driver, lay slumped in the cab of his 18-wheeler on Route 701, north of tiny Newton Grove, N.C., fatally shot in the neck by a sniper. "The strike is the last thing we talked about," recalled his widow Esmond. "I told him to be careful."

Indeed, care was increasingly warranted. By week's end there had been more than 1,000 incidents of violence. Trucks were hit by gunfire and damaged by brickbats and fire bombs; some had their tires slashed or were set afire. Although Capps was the only fatality, more than 50 others were injured, several seriously. Trucker Howard Abrams, 45, was shot in the chest while unloading his rig in Utah. A trucker in Michigan was wounded in the face by windshield glass when a shotgun blast hit his truck. And Melissa Sarsfield, 14, suffered a fractured skull when a brick bounced off a truck into her family's car on the Pennsylvania Turnpike.

In at least 37 states, some highways were becoming unsafe at any speed. In La Porte, Ind., a sniper fired at an 18-wheeler, missed, and hit Schoolteacher Chris Balawender, 35, in the hip while he was driving a van loaded with eleven children. He managed to keep the vehicle under control, averting a major tragedy. One driver in Tampa, Fla., roused by fellow truckers, awoke in his cab's sleeping compartment to find his trailer engulfed in flames. To protect themselves, many truckers traveled only by day, and then only in convoys. At night, drivers jammed rigs into crowded truck-stop parking lots platooned with police and extra security guards to fend off vandals. Some operators bypassed truck stops altogether, however, to avoid intimidation by protesters. "I'm staying away from trouble," said a Fogarty Van Lines driver near Joliet, Ill.

Some truckers took matters into their own hands. Robert Wells returned fire when one of three men in a car pumped six shots into his rig on I-55 near Crystal Springs, Miss. Three shots hit the driver's door, but Wells escaped unharmed. Out of fear, as much as sympathy for the strike, some truckers held a serf-proclaimed moratorium on work. Said a Texas trucker at the Crossroads Truck Stop in Gary, Ind.: "A lot of guys have given up for a few days, gone home and parked their rigs in the driveway hoping this nasty stuff will blow over." But for many, there was no choice. "Hell, I can't lay up," said Trucker Wayne Renn of Lima, Ohio. "I got bills to pay."

At issue in the protest is tax legislation passed by the 97th Congress in the waning hours of the lameduck session and signed by President Reagan on Jan. 6. The bill increases the gas tax by 5-c- per gal. and, over the next five years, hikes highway-user taxes for trucks from $240 to $1,900 a year. For most independent truckers, the new taxes will become effective in 1985, one year later than for the rest of the industry. The federal sales tax on trucks would also jump from 10% to 12%, and new taxes would be imposed on tires, based on their weight. Some industry authorities estimate the total package could increase a trucker's taxes per tractor trailer by $5,000 a year. This is a burden that Michael Parkhurst, president of the Independent Truckers Association, argues will snuff out many independents, already smarting from the recession and increased competition brought on by trucking deregulation.

Parkhurst, a former trucker who founded the ITA in 1962, says that his group represents about 30,000 of the nation's 100,000 independent truckers--those who own and operate their own rigs. Despite their antipathy toward the higher user fees, others within the trucking Establishment gave Parkhurst the cold shoulder. Roy Williams, president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, condemned the violence, calling for Government "protection of our drivers and the motoring public." Said Robert Jasmon, executive vice president of the MidWest Truckers Association, another independent group: "The law is terrible, but striking isn't the way." Insisted Parkhurst: "We deplore violence."

In fact, few truckers blamed Parkhurst's partisans for most of the violence. "Strikers know how much it costs to repair a rig," said Brent Mitchell, 23, who with his father runs a two-rig operation from Big Lake, Minn. "I don't think they're doing most of the damage." Of the more than 60 people arrested, however, all but a handful were either drivers or connected to the trucking industry in some other way. Most of the arrests were made in Pennsylvania and Ohio, where the worst of the violence occurred.

The strike caused spot shortages and slightly higher prices at wholesale and retail food counters. Produce deliveries were down moderately in New York City, Boston and St. Louis, and prices were several cents higher for such items as potatoes, eggplant and beans. Independent truckers, who represent only a fraction of the trucking industry, handle about 90% of the nation's fresh fruits and vegetables. Still, said Russell Roemmely, spokesman for the New Jersey Motor Truck Association, which does not support the action, "the strike won't affect industry that much unless it goes on a few more weeks."

Parkhurst's tactics won his cause little sympathy in Washington. President Reagan, who in 1981 faced down an air controllers' strike, said that it would be "the worst thing in the world" for the Government to capitulate to those "committing murder." At a weekend press conference, Republican Senator Robert Dole of Kansas called the tax bill fair. "Congress will not be intimidated," he declared.

The tough line appeared to have an effect. Although his proposals to the Administration and the trucking industry to end the strike were rebuffed, Parkhurst seemed willing to negotiate. By week's end weigh stations in Florida's agricultural belt reported increasing traffic, and some drivers in other areas appeared to be getting back on the road.

--By Susan Tifft. Reported by Lee Griggs/Chicago and B.J. Phillips/Atlanta

With reporting by Lee Griggs, B.J. Phillips This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.