How about a $1,100 bill for a tank of diesel!

The typical SUV or family sedan driver chokes up a bit at the thought of a $60 tank of gas. Now imagine paying $1,100!

That is what it cost truckers to fill up with diesel fuel this summer. They are hit with the triple whammy — large tanks, diesel prices that typically are about 40 cents higher than gasoline, and skyrocketing prices that have only recently retreated a bit.

Drivers for Hutchinson-based G. R. Daniels Trucking were paying as much as $5.05 a gallon for diesel earlier this month on the West Coast. The East Coast norm was as high as $4.80, while prices in the Midwest were about $4.50 to $4.60.

“It squeezes the margins a lot,” Daniels Trucking’s Sharon Daniels said. One thing many truckers have done in the face of the fuel price crisis is to slow down.

“Most truckers have voluntarily reduced their speeds because in this economic environment you can’t afford not to,” Minnesota Trucking Association President John Hausladen said. “We are calling upon Congress to set a maximum speed limit of 65 mph. We calculate that on a national basis that we’d save over a decade 2.8 billion gallons of diesel fuel and reduce carbon emissions by 31.5 million tons.”

A package of three related fuel price stories can be found on pages 10A and 11A for the Leader’s Aug. 26 print edition.

(Terry Davis is a Hutchinson Leader staff writer. E-mail him at davis@hutchinsonleader.com.)