Capitol Truck Rally Protests Fuel Prices

Independent truckers drove their big rigs through city streets to Capitol Hill to protest diesel fuel prices and demand tax breaks to offset greatly increased operating costs. More than 200 truckers joined a convoy that began in New Jersey and traveled through Delaware and Maryland before snaking its way through the nation’s capital to a rally on the Capitol steps. Police escorted the truckers, horns blaring, along the protest route and finally through city streets near the Capitol, cordoned off to allow parking for the huge rigs. Truckers are angry that gasoline prices have been rising steadily since last March, when the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries cut crude oil production by 7.5%, or more than 2 million barrels a day, to boost prices that had fallen to 12-year lows.