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Thursday, May 1, 2008
More costly, but still truckin’
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
He was 16 the first time he drove a semi.
In his native Pittsburgh, Dean Masson worked for a neighbor who ran a warehouse and moving business. Masson helped to pack, load and unload. Some of the truckers would turn the wheel over to him in the parking lot or on a vacant stretch of road. It marked the start of a career for the 45-year-old Lilburn man.
Masson runs mostly in-state routes for Old Glory Trucking of Stone Mountain. “Drop and swaps,” he calls them. The Badie Tour rode shotgun with Masson on Wednesday morning to get a view of the traffic from the cab of a rig.
Sitting up high definitely gives you a better view of the road. The ride was comfortable, and you could definitely feel the difference between a loaded and empty trailer. The hardest part, really, was getting in and out of the cab, something Masson does dozens of times every day. It’s almost like climbing a short ladder.
Of course, you can’t talk to a trucker without talking about diesel fuel, which is used in the trucks that transport most food, industrial and commercial goods. It averaged $4.22 a gallon in metro Atlanta on Wednesday, according to AAA’s media site.
Independent truck operators, along with fleet outfits that employ truckers like Masson, feel the pinch at the pump. Rising fuel prices cut into profits, even with a bump in freight rates. Independent operators can easily find themselves out of business if their rig isn’t paid off. And there are always operators who try to undercut competitors, only to wind up losing their shirts.
Masson’s Mercedes-Benz-powered rig has a 200-gallon tank. Do the math.
“A lot of trucks hold 300 gallons,” said Masson, who doesn’t let the gauge drop lower than a quarter of a tank. Fortunately, he has an employe—issued credit card, thanks to Bill Giddings, owner of Old Glory Trucking.
Jerry Richter of Conyers isn’t so fortunate. The independent trucker made a delivery Wednesday to ABC Polymers Inc., a recycling business off East Ponce de Leon Avenue. He, like Masson, didn’t think the truckers’ protest held Monday in Washington would amount to much. Some truckers want Congress to stop subsidizing big oil companies, release oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve and end exports of oil from Alaska.
“The only thing that doesn’t go up are the wages,” said Richter, who routinely shells out about $900 at the pump.
Giddings started Old Glory in 1989. His nine-truck fleet mainly serves the Southeast, though he has one client in Green Bay, Wis. Giddings said he was at a loss to explain the rise in diesel fuel, much less how to fix it.
“No idea,” he told me. “I’m just like anybody else. I don’t understand it when I see the price of a barrel of oil and they say all the reserves are full, and that there’s no shortage. It’s just economics, I guess.”
Giddings runs his business like a miser. He tells Masson and the other drivers to save at the pump, even if it’s a penny per gallon.
“If it’s $4.20 on one side and $4.19 on the other, we go for the $4.19,” he said. “It doesn’t sound like much, but it adds up on every gallon.”
I rode shotgun on three runs with Masson. We went from Doraville to Stone Mountain to College Park, then back to Stone Mountain. Traffic was relatively mild and fluid.
“Whether you’re in Atlanta, South Florida or Houston - all drivers are basically the same,” he said. “No matter what speed you’re going, someone is going to pass you.”
Rick Badie’s column appears on Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays. Contact him at 770-263-3875 or e-mail: rbadie@ajc.com.
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