Here are some of the numbers for diesel prices fropm 2008 to 2009 and from 2009 to 2010, and the results could surprise you. In May of 2008, diesel prices were sitting at a little over $4.00 per gallon, then rose to almost $5.00 by August. Then came the decline. By May of 2009, diesel had dropped to around $2.50 per gallon, but now it’s gone back up in 2010 to just over $4.00 again.

These numbers may not mean much to you, but for auto transport companies, especially those with a huge fleet of trucks, this means a lot. See, in the auto transport industry, summer months are always the busiest – more people are moving, more people are getting new jobs, more people are just…active, I guess you could say. In the winter months, the auto transport industry is much slower, because people don’t want to do much. It’s cold, it’s wet, many times there’s snow in certain parts of the country – people just don’t want anything to do with it.

So for diesel prices to be so high in the summer months – and they’re climbing in 2010 again, it looks like – the auto transport industry is definitely put in a bind. Instead of being able to lower prices in the summer (as was usually the case), they now have to keep them steady or even raise prices for consumers, which is bad for business because if the cost is too much, people will just drive their cars as opposed to shipping them.

So let’s hope that diesel prices stay relatively low – at least, don’t go up much more. Because last year was bad, 2008 was worse, and 2010 could be just as bad.