Ryan Schmuhl started his trucking business — Schmuhl Brothers Inc., based in Kansas City, Kansas — in 1995 with his brother Ty and two big rigs. In 2000, he estimates, a 360-mile round trip cost about $90 in diesel. He said that the same trip, on the same lanes, costs about $490 today.
“I used to take $500 bucks cash, and I had that in my pocket, and that’s what I spent for the whole week,” Schmuhl told The Beacon. “It’d be pretty hard to put something like $6,000 cash in my pocket to get fuel done for the week.”
A gallon of diesel averaged $6.53 the week of Sept. 28 in the Midwest, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. That price is nearly double from the first week of January, when a gallon of diesel averaged $3.39…