Trucker's Strike Looming: Fuel Cost Protest in April, Real or Hoax?

A trucker's strike may be looming on the horizon. Many independent over the road truck drivers are fed up with rising fuel and insurance costs and are looking into organizing and trying to join together to take rigs off the road and that would mean shortages at supermarkets, convenience stores and if it was carried out to the extreme, eventually at every retail outlet in America. Everything that gets delivered to a retail store in your city or town is eventually delivered by a truck, and if it were highly organized a strike could paralyze the economy.

But is real or a hoax? In 2005 there were rumors all over that there would be a strike then as well and there were several reports that Teamsters would be involved and many received an e-mail that said in part, "Warning: Truckers unions losing patience with the Federal Government and the U.S. Oil Companies…Under pressure, major freight carriers strike early agreements with Teamsters Union. 88,000 unionized truckers are getting the brunt of fuel costs, the major Truckers Unions and drivers has had about enough of getting ripped off. With truckers unions and drivers claiming unreal fuel expenses the unrest and shift is beginning to give birth to a National Truckers Strike."


That was a hoax, and though this one appears to be much smaller it does seem to be legitimate and a report notes that it is being started online and it is total grass roots. So what could they accomplish if truckers took a week off, what about a month? It would be devastating. According to a report from the Quad City Times, there are roughly 1,000 truckers now saying that they will strike on April 1, and it appears not to be an April Fool's Day joke despite the day the strike will reportedly begin.

It seems a bit under organized at this point and many truckers interviewed by the paper had not heard of the looming strike, but some independent drivers seem to suggest they would join in. Dan Little, the organizer says he knows that the strike can't bring down the price of Diesel (over $4.00 per gallon in many states) but he wants help to try and bring attention to the problems truckers are now facing and he hopes to highlight the need to bring down insurance costs and he would like the government to suspend the tax on Diesel fuel to help the truck driver's that are going broke because of rising prices.