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You

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Filling up the gas tank in your car is increasingly costly, but if you drive a truck diesel fuel

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prices have spiked sharply due to supply disruptions because of the war in Iran and are now at

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a record high above $6 a gallon for all the semis crisscrossing the state carrying the goods

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and products we consume sell and supply the cost of diesel is a blow to transport companies

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and likely to show up downstream in the cost of things we're joined now by Dan Johnson

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president of the Wisconsin Motor Carriers Association and thanks very much for being here thank you

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for having me so what kind of a shock are these diesel prices right now well obviously just

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like anybody else we're seeing the the spike and it's it is a great concern to the trucking

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industry it's not that we haven't been through this before but this is clearly the highest that

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it's been in record so it's something that our trucking companies they're they're dealing with

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they have to absorb those costs in some fashion they're trying to mitigate as best as they possibly

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can but yeah it is a cause for concern right now with those trucking companies what concerns do

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you have that those prices will just keep breaking records well everybody has that

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concern I mean we like to see things level off and hopefully dial back quite a bit

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but you know who knows I mean they just have to plan and prepare one thing with the trucking

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industry is they're very resilient they've we've seen price spikes this like this before back in

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2022 when it got near $6 per gallon for for diesel they adjusted they overcame some of them did

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have to step out of the industry because they couldn't handle the expenses and then there was

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a shift within the trucking industry and then the prices came back down but now we're we're back to

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another unfortunate record high and they're dealing with it as best as they can right now

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just for a sense of understanding what does it cost now to fill up the tanks on a truck like this

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right well you know they they did a study the average cost per mile for a truck and we're talking

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about all the fuel and the other expenses it's about $2.32 per mile that it costs them to to run

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a truck down the road so anytime you add that when you add another dollar to diesel prices that's

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going to add another 14 cents per mile to that to that truck cost so you you expand that out over

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thousands of miles and we're talking about hundreds of thousands of dollars that it's going to cost

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per truck to run them either in the state or across the country so everything is going to be

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impacted i think in the supply chain with of course the consumer being at the end of that

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supply chain so who bears the cost at the start well the the trucking company does

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they bear that cost now they do have some some agreements in place perhaps with their fuel

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distributor for discounts and they also have the ability to apply surcharges to their customer

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if they have an agreement if if the price goes above a certain amount in the diesel market

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that they can add a fuel surcharge now that is available to our medium and larger

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size fleets who can make those who can make those agreements and enter into those negotiations

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but our smaller fleets in the private carriers they're probably at a disadvantage because they

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don't have the opportunity to do that and they're probably going to be paying the retail cost for

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diesel prices how might we see the downstream cost be affecting everything well it's always

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you know it's always hard to say how it's going to manifest itself throughout the supply chain

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because there are so many components within the supply chain again the consumer being the last

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part of that supply chain so there's certainly the potential for consumers to see and increase

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cost for groceries and other items other necessities that they need but you know it's going to be up

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to the trucking company the wholesaler the distributor and the retail to make decisions of their own

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how much they potentially pass along to the consumer so i read on your website that 95

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percent of manufactured tonnage is transported by trucks in Wisconsin are some customers

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pulling back on orders or production because of the cost now it's very possible we haven't

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really seen any kind of hard data right now the economy is moving at a pretty good pace so there's

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a lot of things that are that have already been set in motion as i mentioned previously you know

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the the trucking company is they don't have the opportunity to stop they have to keep moving the

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freight they have to keep moving the product to market so if there are orders in they have to

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keep moving that along the supply chain and get it to its final destination so as to whether

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there's any stoppage from the production side i really don't know what that's happening

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but certainly there could be those that are taking a bit of a pause right now and waiting

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for those diesel prices to come back down with everybody talking about this right now the cost

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of gasoline and the cost of diesel how does it kind of highlight the work that members of your

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association do every day and we might take for granted well absolutely we have 3.5 million drivers

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out there crisscrossing the nation and they're bringing us everything everything that you own

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everything that you have at one point in time was delivered by a truck and there's a man or a

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woman behind that wheel who's delivering those items from the producer to market or in here in

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Wisconsin we're a big agriculture community from the farmer to the consumer and what they do every

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single day in all sorts of conditions whether it's weather bad traffic distracted drivers

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construction zones everything that they have to deal with every single day puts more pressure

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on the work that they do and and we absolutely do take it for granted unfortunately and you know

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back during the covid years when things were disappearing off of the shelves people were asking

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where's all the where's all the supplies that we need i'm like well it's on a truck and it's

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coming here and people started recognizing the the importance of the Wisconsin and the american

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truck driver to deliver those goods to market and it's it's unfortunate that another

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incident or issue like this of of rising diesel prices has to bring that to light but

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that's where we are and people really should take time to appreciate what truck drivers are doing

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out there to keep the economy moving even in light of rising diesel prices all right

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dan johnson thanks very much thank you so much appreciate it

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i'm just wondering i think i read something um when i was looking at all this like hundreds and