As United Parcel Service Inc.'s army of 74,000 domestic drivers make their daily rounds, they share a marching order from headquarters: Shut your engines.
"You will never see a UPS truck idling" at a drop-off point, "even if it's going to be in your driveway for only 30 seconds," spokesman Norman Black said. The driver, he added, "is taught to turn it off."
That's one of several ways the Atlanta-based shipping giant tries to save fuel and corral its soaring energy costs. But they haven't been enough. In the second quarter, Big Brown spent $320 million on fuel -- an increase of $71 million, or 29%, from a year earlier.
Like UPS, companies big and small are struggling to cope with skyrocketing prices for crude oil and its refined products: gasoline, diesel fuel and jet fuel. The situation is especially acute for the fuel-reliant transportation industry.
Gone are the days when Transport Express Inc. in Rancho Dominguez would dispatch some of its 150 trucks only partly filled. With fuel prices so high, "we have to be extremely cautious about how we're matching up our loads," said Vice President Patty Senecal.
Consumers, too, are feeling the pinch of higher pump prices, which leave them with fewer dollars to spend elsewhere. Although average gasoline prices in California and nationwide have fallen from record peaks reached in late May, they remain 30% higher than a year ago, federal surveys show.
Prices are "killing us right now," Billy Aguayo of Echo Park said last week as he pumped gas into his 1989 Chevrolet Suburban at a service station near his home.
Fernando Villamar, manager of a nearby towing service, said stranded motorists sometimes call asking for a free tow. Yet, Villamar said, he has to charge about $40 because the cost of filling up his towing truck leaves little room for profit.
He would like to offer the service at no charge but can't, Villamar said -- not when so much gas money is coming "from my own pocket."
As fuel prices have risen this year, they have created a drag on the U.S. economy. The Federal Reserve Board's policymaking arm, in lifting short-term interest rates last week, said the economy's growth had slowed because of "the substantial rise in energy prices."
The central bank expects stronger expansion ahead. But U.S. industry has a problem right now, with oil for current delivery hitting $46.58 a barrel Friday, a record on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
