Dozens of trucks caravanned down Auckland's Northern Motorway and snaked through city centre streets this morning in a protest aimed at driving home a single point: "ridiculous" fuel prices are hurting drivers, and those of us who eventually buy the goods they haul.
"Government taxes and all that, it's just horrendous at the moment," driver Syd Moana told 1 NEWS.
"Every time we seem to get ahead, something else comes up - diesel prices and all that sort of stuff."
He estimated the increased fuel prices are costing in his company about $5000 per week.
"That's a lot of money to fork out of your own pocket, without the Government helping you," he said.
"They've got to realise that we've had enough."
Fellow driver Danny Morgan estimated his company is paying about $50,000 extra per month, making it difficult to keep the trucks out on the road.
He already pays high rent and high food prices, and as petrol adds another expense it's just too much, he argued.
"You haven't got much left at the end of the day, so people are starting to suffer out there," he said.
"I'm still trying to buy my first house. It's pretty hard...If petrol's going up every day, what we've got left in our hand is less and less."
RNB Transport owner Rob Ryan, who helped organise the rally using many of his own trucks and employees, said the protest isn't just about truckies struggling.
Truckies at RNB Transport wanted to show their outrage at fuel price and road user charge increases.
He pointed to his daughter, who he said is also feeling the pinch on her drive to work every day even though she bought a little Suzuki Swift because of its fuel efficiency.
"You're going to have more people on the street because they can't afford gas to get to work, they can't afford to buy bread and milk, all because of that," he said, explaining that there's going to be a "flow on affect" in the prices of basic items like milk and bread.
"There's power in numbers, man, and that's what it's all about," he said of the rally. "At the moment, we're not getting heard. We've got the councils and the Government just whacking on all these taxes that are not needed...Tell you what, there's a lot of pissed off people out there, and they've had their guts full of it."
Mr Ryan estimated between 100 and 150 trucks participated in the caravan today, with others suggesting it was upwards of 200. Auckland Transport, however, has suggested the number was closer to 40.
The 1 NEWS political reporters discuss the Prime Minister’s reaction to the sky rocketing cost of fuel.
"They are driving courteously and are having a minimal impact on a normally busy peak traffic movement," the agency said in a statement.
Mr Ryan said trucks joined the caravan at different points, with many participants peeling away at different times because they still needed to go to work.
He promised more - and bigger - protests in the future.
"If they don't listen now, we'll do it again in another month," he said. "And next month it'll be bigger."
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