By Steve Pollock

It started with a quiet protest in Vandergrift, PA when the price of diesel suddenly shot past $4.00 a gallon.  Owner-operator Don Waltenbaugh, fed up with the high price of diesel, asked some of his fellow owner-operators to shut down for 24 hours in protest.  Almost 40 drivers parked their rigs at Don's garage outside Vandergrift from midnight, March 23rd to midnight, March 24th in protest of high fuel prices.

Exactly a week later, on Monday, March 31st, Waltenbaugh and a number of PA based owner-operators drove in convoy from Carlisle, PA to the Pennsylvania Capitol in Harrisburg to ask the State Legislation for tax relief from the high price of diesel.

The following day, Tuesday, April 1st, truckers staged controlled protests throughout the nation – from slow downs in Newark, NJ and Chicago to a shut-down by 50 contractors near the Port of Tampa.  The protests were held primarily by owner-operators.

Since these events there has been much speculation as to what these folks accomplished.  And here is what they did – Don Waltenbaugh's group was featured on all three of Pittsburgh's major network news channels: ABC, CBS, and NBC; first at Waltenbaugh's garage and then again when they went to Harrisburg on April 1st, the day of the National Fuel Protest.  The protest garnered the attention of the prime time news as well, Brian Williams reported on NBC Nightly News that "the average driver spends well over a thousand dollars to fill their fuel tank."  He also explained that the higher cost of fuel must eventually be passed along to the consumer, driving inflation.

So these owner-operators who shutdown for a day in protest did accomplish something very important that day, they gained national attention about a problem all Americans face, the ridiculously high cost of diesel fuel and gasoline.  I think our entire nation owes these men and women a round of applause for taking the time off work and for all their trouble to bring the fuel crisis to the attention of our government.  Even as the protests were taking place, oil executives were getting some very hard questions from legislators on Capitol Hill.  There is an old adage, "The squeaky wheel gets the grease."  Maybe, just maybe the oil executives will figure out they are squeezing America’s truckers and her people just a bit too hard.