With the price of regular unleaded fuel now at $3.78 per gallon and diesel fuel at $4.49 a gallon, and higher some places, many people find themselves barely getting by due to gas costs.
Filling up at Raceway station near the I-40 Exit, many people were bracing themselves for the high costs. To combat fuel costs, Jim Ettman of Petite Jean Mountain said, "Drive less and drive slower," as he filled up his mini-van.
Ken Edwards of Conway said he budgets a minimum of $20 a day for gas. "That gets me around to were I need to go to back and forth to work, to the grocery store," Edwards said. "Nothing more (I) don't fill up, $20 takes me where I need to go, takes my family where they need to go."
Gas prices are hurting commuters as well. Many people said they were spending more than $100 a week commuting from Conway to Little Rock.
Filling up his Ford F-150, Brian Monroe of Conway said he's "just paying more money." Monroe said he pays an average of $180 per week driving around central Arkansas, mostly to Little Rock, for work. If prices continue to climb, Monroe said he would have to keep paying, "What else are you going to do?"
At Bates Field and Stream Store in Mayflower, Randy MacDonald of Cabot said he doesn't take any extra trips. "We don't do any traveling of any kind right now because of the gas prices," MacDonald said.
Truckers are really feeling the hurt because of high diesel costs, some independent drivers fear that the rise in gas costs could put them out of business. To combat fuel prices, many have to ask for higher freight charges.
"We're getting more choosey about our loads," Roger Connely, an independant truck driver from Illinois, said as he took a break in Maumelle's McDonalds. "It costs us $1.16 to $1.17 a mile just to run," he said, adding that he drives up to 600 miles a day.
"I carry 300 gallons of fuel," Mike Leonard, another trucker who sat with Connely, said. "Every time I fuel up if I was to fuel up every time it'd cost me about $400."
Leonard added, "We're not really making a living anymore, just getting by."
"If our trucks were to break down or blow a transmission or a motor right now we'd be out of business," Connely said. "We can't afford to fix them."
"It not only affects us, but it filters down," Leonard said. "Just start going to the grocery store and comparing prices to what they were last week. A lot of people don't realize that trucks deliver everything you've got. You don't see railroad tracks next to Sears."
"We're trying to jack our prices up on the freight raise the revenue up. A lot of people just don't want to pay it. A lot of these guys are going broke," Jon Ashner who drives for Tiger Logistics in St. Louis said at the Exxon Station on Dave Ward Drive. "These bigger companies, they'll come in and run it dirt cheap because they have more equipment and we haven't there's only four or five of us." Ashner said. "I've been out here 41 years and this is the worst I've ever seen it. When I started driving my truck, diesel fuel was $.19 a gallon a far cry from what it is today." Even with the rate of inflation, Ashner said fuel costs are ridiculous.
For farmers, fuel costs affect everything from running tractors to bailing hay to purchasing fertilizer.
George Bowie, a farmer in Enola, said he uses a mixture of biodiesel and farm diesel for his farming equipment, but prices are still hurting him.
"We can't stand this like it is. We can't keep farming on $4 or $5 fuel. Farm fuel diesel now is costing over $4.25 (per gallon), we used to buy it for about .60 cents or less. We thought it was awful when it got to a dollar," Bowie said.
Bowie who farms corn, soybeans and wheat said he though biodiesel burned cleaner, but the price difference doesn't make too great of a difference.
"It helps a little bit in the price, but it's not that much difference," Bowie said, adding he's looking for other methods to save on fuel and equipment costs as well.
(Staff writer Monica Hooper can be reached by e-mail at monica.hooper@thecabin.net or by phone at 505-1266. Send us your news at www.thecabin.net/submit)
