American Truckers At War

Tanker Truck Stolen

HOUSTON, TX — Police are searching for a man who hijacked a tanker truck loaded with diesel fuel.

Truck driver Bobby Lee Julien said he never thought high gas prices would affect him the way they did early Monday.

Julien said it only took a few seconds for a man to open the passenger side door, jump in the cab, and point a gun right at him.

“I begged him not to shoot me,” said Julien. “I feared for my life. The whole time he had a gun pointed at me.”

Julien has driven a fuel tanker for 27 years.

“Before I even realized what was going on, he was in the truck.”  More from FirstCoastNews

Reward For Gas Bandits

JACKSONVILLE, FL — A local business owner is offering a cash reward for the arrest of whoever got their hands on his company gas card and went on a $2000 fill-up spree with his friends.

Robert Olson of Future Computer Systems got a call from Gate Gas Company last week about some ‘unusual purchases’ and discovered one of his fleet’s gas cards was not only missing… but the bad guys had also gotten a hold of the card’s PIN number.

Surveillance video from the Gate station off Stockton shows a series of cars and young men taking turns filling up at one pump under the same transaction.
 
“And that (Red) Durango is very very distinctive. You cannot miss those rims. They’re 20-inch rims…22-actually,” said Olson.  More from FirstCoastNews

From Canada: Thieves target rural gas
By LETHBRIDGE HERALD
May 6, 2008, 04:48 

With gasoline becoming more valuable than the black gold it’s made from, RCMP are warning farmers and other rural residents to lock their gas tanks and take extra precautions to keep their fuel safe from siphoners.
Const. Larry Iutzi, with the Milk River detachment, says recently two farmers each had 400 gallons of gas stolen from their operations and thieves targeted an agricultural firm taking gas one night and a pump the next.
Iutzi has also heard of other cases, including a bulk dealer being hit in Bow Island, and a $5,000 gas theft in Picture Butte.
“I think we’re going to see these kinds of thefts escalating with the price of gas going up,” he said. “It’s a big concern.”  From the Lethbridge Herald

A tractor-trailer was stolen Sunday night in far north Fort Worth, but the bandits abandoned it and most of the load — 18,000 home pedicure kits.

The truck, trailer and load were found Monday in Haslet.

A company spokeswoman said only a few of the egg-shaped PedEgg foot files were missing. Perhaps for Mother’s Day gifts? Enough to scrape off the dead skin and calluses that come from fleeing crime scenes?

Fort Worth police weren’t sure what to make of the loot either — on the police report, an officer recorded the merchandise as “11,000 pounds of dog food.”  From the Ft. Worth Star Telegram

GILMANTON, N.H. (AP) Officials are looking for someone who left a tanker truck next to a pond in Gilmanton (New Hampshire) and emptied some sort of liquid into the water.

Investigators say it was no accident. They say someone abandoned the truck and opened the discharge valves to allow the liquid to flow into Rocky Pond.

Firefighters contained the liquid Tuesday evening.  From WBZTV.com

Below is the transcript of Glenn Beck’s interview with Senator Pete Domenici (R-NM).  Senator Dominici hits on some very good points regarding the fuel situation (from CNN.com).  It’s not “big oil” that is our enemy, it is liberal Democrats and environmentalist whackos….

BECK: Well, if you`ve been paying any attention to the news over the last week, you probably heard something about a gas tax holiday. But in some cases, the gift of lifting that gas tax comes along with something they like to call a windfall profits tax, a tax on excess profits made by the greedy oil companies. Oh, they`re twisting their moustaches in their office right now.

Sounds pretty good, doesn`t it? Not so much. Everything you ever wanted to know about windfall profits — I don`t happen to know all that much — but we`ll make it interesting in tonight`s “Real Story,” coming up.

All three presidential candidates now continue to weigh in on the idea of the gas tax holiday for the summer. John McCain is in favor of it. Hillary Clinton has jumped on board, calling it a “real and immediate solution.” Barack Obama disagrees, saying it would only save the average American a few bucks a week and what`s that, really?

You know, maybe an elitist like Barack Obama doesn`t really care about a few extra bucks in his pocket, but I`ll take it. I mean, people who live in the real America, you know, we`ll take anything we can get.

What none of the candidates, however, will say is that the gas tax holiday is a red herring. Why are we arguing about this? It might feel like relief in the short term, but it doesn`t address any of the real problems. And that problem is, we need more oil. Supply is low, demand is high. And that`s why prices are up. And it ain`t going away, Jack. Read more »

Dallas began enforcing its new anti-idling ordinance this week, an initiative intended to improve air quality in the city by fining truckers found to be idling excessively.

The city issued 11 tickets Thursday, the day the ordinance went into effect.

Passed last May by the City Council, the law prohibits trucks weighing more than 14,000 pounds from sitting still with their engines running for more than five minutes within the city limits. It will be enforced during the state’s ozone season, April 1 to Oct. 31.

The Class C misdemeanor carries a $350 fine.

The city is asking anyone who sees a vehicle violating the ordinance to call 311 and report the license plate number. From the Dallas Morning News

I don’t know if the brain surgeons who thought this law up are aware of it, but truckers live and work out of their trucks. Perhaps the city should turn off their air conditioners in the Texas heat for awhile and see just how great of an idea it is. Just another way to get money out of the pockets of already cash-strapped truckers.
RTaylor

5/7/2008
LAS VEGAS — Motorists in Nevada might not see a savings at the pump if Congress approves a gasoline tax holiday touted by two presidential candidates, a state official said.

Nevada has a law to increase fuel taxes to offset any drop in the federal tax, to ensure funding for construction projects and bond funding, said Kent Cooper, Nevada Department of Transportation assistant director of planning.

“It was put in place as protection, should the federal program go away,” Cooper said.

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., have proposed suspending the 18.4 cents-per-gallon federal tax from Memorial Day to Labor Day as a way to provide relief to motorists facing rising fuel prices.

Nevada state law calls for increasing the state gas tax “equal to the amount by which the federal tax is reduced.”

Cooper said some of the $235 million per year that Nevada gets from the U.S. government for road construction projects and maintenance comes from the fuel tax.

Without those funds, he said, the state would be unable to provide services such as repaving, restriping and plowing roads.

The state would also have to cancel construction projects already under way, such as a key Interstate 15 widening project north of downtown Las Vegas, Cooper said. He said canceling projects “costs you a whole bunch of money.” From TheTrucker.com