More striking drivers

a href=”http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5j8IIKbeFvf0RRiRCYKSmsyi3VoMg”img id=”BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5303777886097083874″ style=”FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 200px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 133px” alt=”” src=”http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_ez6JTnOl_tQ/SZrN4wRjjeI/AAAAAAAAANU/w_tJi9HF3WI/s200/mex.jpg” border=”0″ //aFollowing a large, somewhat successful fuel-price strike a href=”http://channel19.blogspot.com/2009/01/diesels-not-down-everywhere.html”by Indian truck drivers in January/a, yesterday an estimated 500,000 Mexican truck and bus drivers staged a one-day shutdown in an attempt to get the government to reduce fuel prices from “$0.50 per liter ($1.90 per gallon), to its January 2008 price of $0.42 per liter ($1.60 per gallon),” a href=”http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5j8IIKbeFvf0RRiRCYKSmsyi3VoMg”AFP reported/a.br /br /Led in part by the 70,000-member National Agriculture Transport Workers Union, AFP reported, the shutdown came with threats of further, longer shutdowns absent a meeting with union members. There was no word from the government as of Tuesday morning.br /br /In the U.S., the Associated Press reported on the strange dynamic that has West Texas-extracted crude at quickly falling price levels and, good news for truckers concerned with the gas/diesel price differential, gasoline prices on the upswing. Turns out that, a href=”http://www.tuscaloosanews.com/article/20090216/NEWS/902150257/1007?Title=Price_of_crude_oil_is_cheaper___so_why_isn_t_gas_”according to AP/a, most gasoline is produced from lower-quality overseas crude, making transport and refining costs more impactive cost variables. Go figure.br /br /li class=”social-digg”a onclick=”window.open(‘http://digg.com/submit?phase=2amp;url=’+encodeURIComponent(location.href)+’amp;title=’+encodeURIComponent(document.title), ‘digg’); return false;” href=”http://digg.com/submit”Digg/a/lili class=”social-facebook”a onclick=”window.open(‘http://www.facebook.com/share.php?u=’+encodeURIComponent(location.href)+’amp;title=’+encodeURIComponent(document.title),’facebook’); return false;” href=”http://www.facebook.com/share.php”facebook/a/lidiv class=”blogger-post-footer”Channel 19 is the blog version of the column of the same name featured in Overdrive: The Voice of the American Trucker. Todd Dills ([email protected]) is its author./div