By The Associated Press
ATLANTA - A convoy of independent truckers circled metro Atlanta on Tuesday as part of a nationwide protest against rising diesel-fuel prices that are approaching $4 a gallon nationally.
About 30 truckers gathered Tuesday morning at the Flying J truck stop in Jackson for the convoy about 40 miles north on Interstate 75 to Atlanta.
More joined along the route, building to a 3-mile string of tractor-trailers with headlights on and caution lights flashing about 10 a.m. on a stretch of I-285, east of Atlanta, said Danny Ashley, one of the organizers.
"We picked up drivers all along the way," said Ashley, 38, who lives near Dublin in east-central Georgia and has been an independent driver for 13 years. "A lot of drivers rode by and didn't stop, but we got a lot of owner-operators who joined in."
Georgia State Patrol troopers observed the trucks around I-285, where they moved in an orderly way at appropriate speeds, some with their caution lights blinking, patrol spokesman Trooper Larry Schnall said.
"They didn't do anything unlawful," Schnall said.
He had no estimate of the number involved in the protest but said most headed back south on I-75.
Ashley agreed that the protest was lawful but said the truckers maintained a speed of about 20 mph, which seems a normal speed at times on the congested perimeter highway.
He said the convoy tried to remain in single file in the right-hand lane of the multi-lane interstate so as not to antagonize other motorists, but sometimes individuals moved two or three abreast.
The protesters want the Legislature to cut state fuel taxes. They originally wanted to drive to the state Capitol to take their message to lawmakers but were unable to do that, Ashley said.
"You're not allowed to go downtown in big trucks unless you have local deliveries," he said. "We had been warned not even to go downtown unless we wanted to get locked up."
On Thursday, the owner-operators in Georgia plan to join a nationwide truck shutdown, Ashley said.
"The trucking industry cannot survive the way it is now," he said.
He said state lawmakers might not be able to do much to alleviate rising costs but "there may be Band-Aids that they can do until they can do something."
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