Rising gas prices are leaving some local truckers with nothing — no job, no rig and no home.

“I know two guys who took money out of their homes to buy trucks and now they are losing both,” said Tom Holden, owner-operator of Holden Trucking in Hesperia. “Unfortunately, it’s not uncommon.”

Holden, who has been in business for some 16 years, said his fuel costs were about $7,000 a month and jumped to $11,000 in the past few months.

“When companies pay 32 cents per mile and some older trucks get something like two miles to the gallon, the cost of fuel is more than the load pays,” said Dave Green, a mobile truck mechanic from Hesperia.

He added that some of the newer, lower-emission trucks get worse gas mileage than the ones built around 2005.
Skyrocketing gas prices are just one of the many problems facing the trucking industry, said Julie Sauls, spokesperson for the California Trucking Association. New environmental bills are pushing many truckers to flee the state while they still can experts said.

“At this moment I am keeping watch on 80 bills that can impact the trucking industry,” Sauls said.

The San Pedro Area Clean Air Action Plan may make the biggest impact, Sauls said.

According to the San Pedro plan, trucks need to make certain changes in order to meet environmental and air quality guidelines, including having to purchase either new lower-emission trucks or making modifications to existing trucks.

Many see this as a difficult balancing act.

“When you try to solve the environmental problem, which does have to be addressed, people don’t realize that it’s trucks that drive the food into the markets,” said Eddie Moreno, co-owner of Quality Driver Solutions, a driver-recruitment center in Ontario.

The CTA is working every day to strike a good balance between reducing emissions and transporting goods, said Sauls. Some of those efforts include California’s use of ultra-low sulfur fuel for almost a decade and traveling at more fuel-efficient speeds.

The ultimate increase in price in passed onto the consumer, said Sauls.

“This is the worst I have ever seen it in 19 years in the business,” said Green.

“Coupled with diesel prices topping off at more than $4 a gallon, some of the owners are finding it harder to conduct business and are operating on a thinner margin,” Sauls said.

The price of diesel in California has also impacted out-of-state drivers.

“We don’t fuel up in California,” said Robert Schaefer of Oklahoma. Other long-haul truckers share Schaefer’s sentiments.

“The big problem is that we don’t get any of that increase, the company doesn’t see the money. It all lines the pockets of those oil mongrels,” said Lisa Serrao of Arizona.