The Climate is Right

You can’t control the price of diesel fuel any more than you can control the weather. These days there can be a two-cents-a-litre swing in the approximate time it takes to unscrew the cap off your saddle tank. As for the weather, the bills from one of the worst winters on record are coming due. A big truckload carrier I know spent $82,000 during the first 10 weeks of the year on maintenance related to gelling fuel. It’s bad enough when the stuff costs 80 cents a litre. Now it’s gumming up the plumbing.

For years, truckers have been tripping over empty additive bottles trying to keep the cab and fuel warm, trying to balance the need to manage consumption costs and worker’s comp claims due to frostbite. Through all that time, constant as the drone rising from the far back lot, the answer has been to idle the engine.

It’s a necessary evil, and anyone who says otherwise ought to be given a Canadian Tire sleeping bag and be made to spend a February night at the Edmonton Husky with no heat. Yes, an idling big-bore diesel is expensive to operate. It uses a half-gallon of fuel per hour and generates no revenue doing it, something few fleets can afford. The fuel expense of an owner-operator is about 20 percent of revenues. At bigger fleets, it’s closer to 10 percent. And that’s during a 50-cent-a-litre year.

Idling also pollutes. While total greenhouse gas emissions in this country have been rising 1.5 percent a year since 1990, emissions from trucks have been growing at a clip of 4.7 percent. Heavy-duty vehicles account for 19 percent of greenhouse gasses from transportation. With a Kyoto commitment to live up to, Ottawa will put the pressure on to turn the engines off.

If it’s tips and training you want, Natural Resources Canada’s FleetSmart program is a good start (oee.nrcan.gc.ca/ fleetsmart; 613/992-9608). This initiative, a clearinghouse for information about bettering your fuel economy, deserves Ottawa’s continued support and your time and attention. (The price is right: most FleetSmart materials are free.)

But if governments are serious about reducing idling, they should offer the industry tangible incentives to spec equipment that furthers the cause — tax and weight credits for auxiliary heaters and gen sets, including the cost of installation, which is so crucial to their reliability. Cab heaters are expensive and typically heavy (up to 500 pounds for a gen set). Truck OEMs freeze up at the thought of a factory installation, so they’re not adequately promoted. And the notion of having to look after a little motor in addition to a big one leaves a lot of truck owners cold.

But extra consideration for cab heaters by way of a tax and weight allowance would warm the heart, mind, and wallet, especially after such a painful, bitter winter.

Last month, with a terror alert and war in the headlines, the American Trucking Associations encouraged its members to “maintain a high state of readiness in order to respond to specific threats or terrorist actions at home that may require emergency actions.” Truckers are the eyes of the nation, the ATA will remind you, and no doubt those eyes are wide open for anyone who looks like he doesn’t belong.

During wartime, mere perception is enough to stop a person dead in his tracks. After 9/11, the owner of an expedited fleet told me about how some of his Sikh drivers were stowing their turbans in favour of baseball caps as they approached the border. One Sikh drivers, hungry after waiting several hours for clearance on the American side, left his truck and walked to a sandwich stand, where he was approached by U.S. immigration inspector and accused of trying to cross illegally. The driver was made to obtain a waiver from the U.S. consulate before he can enter the United States again. That’s a six-month process at best. He took a Vancouver to Calgary route — a run that pays far less than his usual run to Los Angeles.

Clearly, an individual has his rights. You don’t give them up when you express your faith –or your nationalism. Given Canada’s position on the war, some Americans will look at you sideways for the flag you fly, let alone the colour of your skin. So by all means, keep your eyes open for terrorist threats. But do so knowing that eyes are on you, too.