Exclusive | Record diesel costs cripple trucking companies across California

California’s record diesel prices are hammering trucking companies already squeezed by soaring insurance, equipment and regulatory costs, with some warning they can no longer afford to keep their rigs on the road.The statewide average hit a record $8.39 a gallon Friday, according to AAA, up from $7.98 just one week ago and $5.17 a year ago.In Los Angeles and Long Beach, diesel averaged $8.36 Friday.Nationally, diesel also hit a record $6.45 a gallon Friday, compared with $3.71 a year ago, according to AAA.The surge comes just one week after The Post found California stations displaying diesel at a staggering $9.99 a gallon, effectively maxing out some digital price boards.For Andrew Piazza, whose father and two uncles founded Piazza Trucking more than 70 years ago, the pain comes with every fill-up.“Our trucks are like $1,500 per fill-up,” Piazza told The Post.“A few years ago it was in the three-to-four-dollar range, and now you see as much as eight, over $8 a gallon,” he said.Piazza Trucking, founded in California in 1953, specializes in moving oversized and heavy equipment, including electrical transformers, telephone poles, excavators and tractors.Piazza said trucking companies cannot simply pass every extra dollar in fuel costs onto their customers because they are competing against other carriers willing to move the same freight for less.“You gotta absorb a little bit because there’s always someone that can do it for cheaper,” Piazza said.

“The owner-operators, they have less overhead.But it’s affecting everybody.”Eventually, however, something has to give.“If certain lanes [routes] have been the same price for a while, you can’t haul that freight on that lane for that same price anymore,” Piazza said.

“So it’s just kind of making the price of everything go up.”That is what makes the diesel spike potentially painful far beyond truck stops.Trucks carry everything from groceries and construction materials to the massive equipm...