Diesel Fuel Rationing?

[seville009]

It is odd to see prices of fuel vary by 60 cents or more a gallon here in the SF Bay Area.

The discount station is morning to night cars jockeying around the 3 pump islands.

The Shell three blocks away at the interstate is 60 cents more per gallon!

It's the same all over and isn't all fuel sourced at a handful of refineries?

same here in the northeast......I use Google maps to search gas prices where I am. It's unexplainable how wide of a variation there can be. I got gas at $4.15 yesterday; the majority of stations are around $4.70.

 

[jyoutz]

Thats me. Ohio, 15 miles south is always cheaper than here on on road diesel and gasoline.

From where I live Arizona is 250 miles away, Colorado is 200 mile, both more expensive fuel. Texas is 180 miles and about the same price. There are no cheaper alternatives. Costco is always the cheapest price.

 

[redobbin]

Nobody seems to remember ENRON and how they artificially created rolling blackouts so they could manipulate energy prices. Record profits. Big bonuses paid out.

I think the above message could be re-written as follows:
"Due to our ability to manipulate the market and use covid combined with russia's invasion of ukraine as an excuse to gouge our customers, we are going to restrict product delivery to create a false demand so we can artificially inflate prices to record levels disproportionate to the price of crude oil. Suck it up sunshine while I enjoy my newer and bigger bonus this year. Capitalism rocks!"

Capitalism is a system of economics, it is neutral, the problem still lies in the corrupt heart of man. Greed is NOT a virtue.

 

[jayhawk238]

This is a difficult topic to consider without blaming some groups.

It's almost like a plan of some sort..

I believe it was planned over a year ago.... I'll let you guess by who... but I can smell RATS.....

 

[jigs_n_fixtures]

I poked at another poster as well. The truckers feel like they pay their share plus some. I do see others claim truckers come out on the high side. My lite experience with bnsf living in an ag town in the mid west; they were confiscatorialy inflexible, and could careless about bankrupting a small town on a spur line.

There is clearly an efficiency gain for a train vs a truck at scale, however, if they will only show up with two cars, and only on a Wednesday, without regard to the customers needs, then I will pay the extra 3 cents a mile to a freight company that pretends to care.

I don't know if the trucks are under sir charged or not, but, I do know with JIT manufacturing and with only 12 hour stocking, we should probably develop an appreciation for them, at least for a year or two........


Best,

ed

Trucks pay roughly 15% of the fuel and excise taxes that are collected for road maintenance. They cause 90% or more of the wear and tear.

The loading from cars, is light, four tires at 40-50-psi don’t put enough load on the pavement to damage it. Particularly with a truck running 18-wheels at 120-psi and up.

As the trucks have gone to higher psi tires to get better mileage, and being allowed to run longer, heavier loads, they have contributed less per ton axle mile every year for a couple of decades.

Something which apparently can’t be understood by the state legislatures who keep voting for those higher weights, and longer lengths.

 

[3Ts]

The loading from cars, is light, four tires at 40-50-psi don’t put enough load on the pavement to damage it. Particularly with a truck running 18-wheels at 120-psi and up.

I'm not understanding this. How does tire pressure relate to pavement damage? I would think that the weight of the vehicle and the contact area of the tire would be the determining factor. I will grant you that heavier vehicles typically have higher air pressures, but bigger tires (and more of them) also result in a larger contact area. I will also agree that trucks do more damage than cars. I don't agree that tire psi has anything to do with damaging the pavement.

 

[jyoutz]

Trucks pay roughly 15% of the fuel and excise taxes that are collected for road maintenance. They cause 90% or more of the wear and tear.

The loading from cars, is light, four tires at 40-50-psi don’t put enough load on the pavement to damage it. Particularly with a truck running 18-wheels at 120-psi and up.

As the trucks have gone to higher psi tires to get better mileage, and being allowed to run longer, heavier loads, they have contributed less per ton axle mile every year for a couple of decades.

Something which apparently can’t be understood by the state legislatures who keep voting for those higher weights, and longer lengths.

I was told when I attended the railroad freight conference that one loaded semi truck creates the same highway wear as 6000 passenger cars. This seems incredible, and I have no clue if it’s accurate, but that’s what was presented.

 

[ericm979]

It's more like 10,000x if it's a 80k lb semi with five axles compared to a 4000lb car. 2500x if it has 8 axles. It's the per axle loading that's the problem (unlike bridges where it's total weight). Road damage is the fourth power of the axle load.

How Much Damage Do Heavy Trucks Do to Our Roads?

(Inside Science) -- It may be obvious that heavy semitrucks stress and damage roads more than the average commuter sedan does. But by how much? Since the 1960s, the Generalized Fourth Power Law has been used as a rule of thumb when considering the relative damage done to the pavement depending...

www.insidescience.org

 

[jigs_n_fixtures]

I went to fill up my Ram 2500 5.9 cummins last week at a Walmart near Chattanooga. The pump stopped at 20 gallons, about 10 less than I wanted. fjb.

Could that be because your bank hasn’t reset the single purchase limits on credit and debit cards at gas stations.

I was filling two trucks, a tractor, and a fifty gallon transfer tank, a few years back, and had to use two debit, and one credit card, to do it, because my bank had single purchase limits at gas stations on the cards.

The fraud folks at the bank called after the second filling on the second debit card, and told me to use my credit card. Either it didn’t have the same limits, or they could reset the limit easier.

 

[dirttoys]

Trucks pay roughly 15% of the fuel and excise taxes that are collected for road maintenance. They cause 90% or more of the wear and tear.

The loading from cars, is light, four tires at 40-50-psi don’t put enough load on the pavement to damage it. Particularly with a truck running 18-wheels at 120-psi and up.

As the trucks have gone to higher psi tires to get better mileage, and being allowed to run longer, heavier loads, they have contributed less per ton axle mile every year for a couple of decades.

Something which apparently can’t be understood by the state legislatures who keep voting for those higher weights, and longer lengths.

I tend to simplify things, and I am aware this may seem a little socialistic.

Truck road uses charges are passed to the consumer in the cost of transportation. If they caused 100 percent of the damage and paid nothing, your taxes would be a little higher and coco puffs would be a little cheaper. They don't drive the trucks to church or picnics, they are hauling consumer goods or raw materials, why does it matter how the consumer gets the bill?

If your above coco puffs were cheaper to ship by rail, the manufacture would already be taking advantage of that.

Best,

ed