Driver Lifestyles

An Expedited Veteran's Perspective

Carroll Bean, Jr. with Jeff Jensen, Editor

I’ve been driving trucks for over 40 years and I enjoy what I do for a living. I’ve been running as a team with my wife, Dora, in expediting for the past 14 years now and it has been great. This niche in trucking doesn’t work for everyone but it works for us.

I’ve owned my own trucks for the past 14 years. I do what I do because I choose to not because I have to. And even though the transportation industry in America is a very important part of every ones life we are seen yet not seen by much of the general population.


I’ve recently heard comments like, “With fuel prices the way they are I’m glad I don’t own a truck."

I’ve even heard, “Maybe these high fuel prices will finally get some of the trucks off the road."

Well, when that person can’t buy gas for his car because the truck didn’t deliver any gas to the station or he can’t buy groceries because the truck didn't deliver to the store, he might want those trucks back on the road.

Some folks are still unaware of the fact that trucks are how goods get to the stores. As a matter of fact, the store itself got there by truck. I guess it’s kind of like not being able to see the forest for the trees.

The people of this country are involved in trucking more then they know. And what effects trucking will effect us all eventually.

I remember fuel at $.50 a gallon, $1.50 a gallon, then $2.00 a gallon, now here we are with fuel over $4.00 a gallon and headed for who knows where. Wow!

I’ve heard lots of different ideas on how to get the fuel prices back down to an affordable price from having a national truck strike to driving slow and clogging the roads in an attempt to bring attention to the high cost of fuel and the problems it causes.

But is there anyone out there that we really need to reach who has not yet realized we have a gas and diesel price problem? I’m thinking anyone who isn’t already aware of it probably can’t help us.

I’m not the brightest light on the truck but I personally don’t agree with doing anything along the lines of a strike or a clog-the-roads slow down.
As I see it, the problem with a national truck shut down is it hurts the people we shouldn’t hurt including ourselves. In my view, a national truck shut down or a rolling road block will accomplish nothing positive and only cast a negative view on our industry in the eyes of the public.

I don’t believe we can strong arm a meaningful price reduction. So if we can’t get the fuel prices lowered, what then needs to happen for us to continue operating? It's simple, our compensation needs to go up. For what it’s worth, here is what I’m doing.

I’m a member of OOIDA because I believe they are the best advocate I have to help me resolve the issues I have where it might matter, i.e., Washington, DC. I also call my senator, congressman, governor and anyone else that I think might make a difference. And I call them often.

I drive slower to conserve fuel and I won’t load freight with too low a tariff. Freight rates will eventually have to come up even though no one really wants to raise their rates. They don’t want to drive their customers away so a fuel surcharge is implemented to help the trucks service the customers.

This is a good concept because if fuel prices ever go down the customer will pay less. When the fuel is high the person buying the fuel will receive some relief and the rates won’t need to be raised.

In my opinion, fuel prices will never significantly go down. In too many cases, the person buying the fuel is not receiving the entire fuel surcharge. There are greedy companies and freight brokers taking chunks out of the fuel surcharge before it ever reaches the person buying the fuel.

I’ve heard that there are some trucking companies out here that are even taking the adequate fuel surcharge being paid by some customers and transferring part of it to a customer who isn’t paying a surcharge. This is being done to make the freight rates more competitive.

The problem here in some cases is the truck ends up with two inadequate fuel surcharges instead of just one. I don’t think I’d like to be a customer paying an adequate fuel surcharge then find out I’m actually paying the fuel surcharge for some other company that isn’t paying one. That sounds kind of risky to me.

There are a lot of companies that want the trucks to operate for the same rates we got 7 to 10 years ago when we could buy fuel for $1.20 or less.

It’s not just the fuel that has gone crazy in our cost of operating, either. I was in trucking when de-regulation happened and after that occurred, it was pretty obvious to me that if I wanted to make money driving a truck I needed to do something more specialized then just hauling general freight.

It was too easy to simply have an empty freight box to offer a customer and many drivers were doing just that. I needed to offer more and I needed to do something few people could or would do. I discovered expediting.

I’ve learned to roll with the punches pretty well and I’ve no intention of getting out of trucking. I’m not out here to refuse loads but I’ve never refused more than I have this past year because I can’t haul that cheap. I’m trying to make a living doing this. Maybe it’s time I got a little more specialized again.

U.S. Senators Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) and Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) introduced legislation recently to require 100% of the fuel surcharge be passed to the person buying the fuel.

They need our support! If you really want to try to make a difference, call your state senators and tell them to support S.2910 (the TRUCC Act). And if you're not a member of OOIDA, think about joining. I think it’s shameful that we need to have the government pass a law to force folks to do the right thing and give 100% of the fuel surcharge to the person who buys the fuel.

Instead of shutting down or clogging the roads, do your best to tie up the phone lines to your elected officials and leave the freight with inadequate rates sitting on the shippers dock - itës the only way freight rates will come up. You can’t payout more than you take in for very long.

I hope everyone stays safe out there.