GREEN BAY, WI – With diesel prices pushing over the $4 per gallon, many independent owner/operators are doing what they can — including eliminating idle time, taking lighter loads, driving slower, and keeping tires properly inflated — to cut costs and stem losses from their bottom lines, according to the Green Bay Press Gazette.

The state average price for diesel was $4.08 per gallon last Thursday. That was up from a monthly average of $3.49 in February and about $1.28 more per gallon than at the same time last year, according to AAA’s Daily Fuel Gauge Report. National figures are slightly lower, but the trend is the same.

Norita Taylor of the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association in Grain Valley, Mo., said the organization has been getting reports of owners selling their trucks and signing on as company drivers or simply parking them. Taylor said the industry is seeing several issues converging at once: fuel surcharges that aren’t always passed back to the driver from the broker, a shortage of freight and high fuel prices.

The association has reached out to the Bush administration, asking for immediate cessation of diversion of oil supplies to the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. Instead the association wants to allow the product to directly enter the marketplace.