If a load feels like it’s taking longer to get where it’s going lately, or a local hauler you’ve used for years has gone quiet, diesel prices may be part of the story. Diesel in Missouri has climbed nearly 60% over the past year, and it’s already forcing some of the state’s trucking companies to shut their doors.
Tom Crawford, president of the Missouri Trucking Association, told Missourinet that the pain is landing hardest on small, family-owned carriers — the kind of operation that’s been running trucks since the 1970s, ’80s, and ’90s. “It’s unfortunate I’m seeing family-owned mom and pop trucking companies that grew during the 70s and 80s and 90s and getting notices that they’re shutting down their doors or they’re closing their businesses,” Crawford said.
Fuel is the second-biggest line item on a trucking company’s books, behind only what it costs to keep a driver in the seat. When diesel jumps the way it has this year, there’s not much room left to absorb it — a smaller operation running a handful of trucks doesn’t have the fuel hedges or the long-term contracts that keep the big national carriers cushioned.
That matters here because I-70 through Boonville and Rocheport is a working freight corridor, not just a commuter road — trucks hauling grain, livestock, and general freight move through Cooper, Howard, and Boone counties every day, many of them owned by exactly the kind of small, independent carrier Crawford is describing. A thinner field of local haulers can mean fewer options and higher shipping costs for the farms, grain elevators, and small businesses along the corridor that depend on them.
Crawford expects the squeeze to show up further down the chain, too. Fuel costs that carriers can’t absorb tend to get passed along in freight rates, and freight rates show up eventually in what things cost on the shelf — a dynamic that typically gets more pronounced as holiday shipping season ramps up demand for trucks.
There’s no sign yet of relief at the pump for diesel specifically, and the Association isn’t predicting one. For now, Crawford’s message to state and federal officials watching the freight economy is the same one he’s been telling reporters: family carriers that have hauled Missouri freight for two, three, sometimes four generations are closing, not because business dried up, but because the fuel bill got too big to outrun.
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