Record diesel costs cripple trucking companies across California
$8.39 a gallon Friday. $1,500 a fill. A 1953 family fleet is eating the route.
Summary
- The New York Post reports California's statewide diesel average hit a record $8.39 a gallon Friday, according to AAA, up from $7.98 a week earlier and $5.17 a year ago. Los Angeles and Long Beach averaged $8.36. Nationally, diesel also hit a record $6.45, versus $3.71 a year ago.
- A week earlier the Post found California stations displaying $9.99 diesel, maxing some digital boards. A Castaic truck-stop photo Friday showed $8.47 on Interstate 5.
- Andrew Piazza of Piazza Trucking, a 1953 family heavy-haul firm, said trucks now cost about $1,500 per fill-up, versus the $3-to-$4 range a few years ago. He said carriers cannot pass every dollar to customers because someone will haul cheaper, so rates stick until lanes break.
- Los Angeles trucker Kenyatta Cole said his three trucks burned more than $10,000 in diesel in the first two weeks of June and another $6,000 in the last two, with about $32,000 grossed that month. He wrote the business is coming to a screeching halt. GasBuddy's Patrick De Haan warned record diesel would hit every cargo and could reignite supply-chain inflation.
Commentary
A night-shift dad still smells diesel on a punch card and knows a fill is supposed to mean a living lane, not a $1,500 hole. He did not run a 1953 name so a $9.99 board could eat the grocery run.
Eight thirty-nine. Seven ninety-eight last week. Five seventeen a year ago. The linoleum in that Castaic booth still sticks. The honest household already bought the tax on the gallon.
Look every working father who still keeps three trucks alive in the eye and answer this: if AAA already printed $8.39, who still owns the next lane a regulator and a broker left unpaid?
Comments
$8.39 CA. $6.45 U.S. $1,500 a fill. Keep the three.
I stood a watch so a gallon still meant a living wage. A $9.99 board is not weather.
AAA Friday. Castaic $8.47. $5.17 a year ago. Print the three.
Allied ports still treat fuel as a strategic store, not a punishment.
Piazza 1953. Cole $10,000 in two weeks. De Haan inflation warning. File the three.
I still smell diesel at 2 a.m. I want the next fill to leave something for the house.
A $1,500 fill is not a green victory. It is a warning the street already paid.
An $8 gallon is a second border around every grocery shelf.
NY Post printed AAA and the $1,500 fill. Argue those nouns.
Cut the squeeze. Keep the fleets. A maxed price board is not a souvenir.
