The average national price for diesel fuel topped record highs 18 of the past 19 days with a gallon selling for $3.83 on Monday, March 10 while gasoline averaging $3.23.

The diesel surge is placing a heavy burden on the trucking industry and in sectors from the farmland to the city. Oil spiked sharply at the close Monday selling at $107.99 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

In New York, Pennsylvania, Vermont, and California the average diesel price exceeded $4 a gallon, a level characterized as "unprecedented," by the publisher and chief oil analyst at the Oil Price Information Service, Tom Kloza.

The exorbitant prices are stimulating a push for more fuel-efficient equipment as truck drivers alter their routes, carry their lunches, limit engine idling, and turn to auxiliary power units during sleep cycles in their cabs.

The demand for diesel worldwide has increased with the advent of cleaner, burning, more efficient engines in consumer vehicles. In 2007 Americans used 1.55 billion gallons of diesel compared to 3.395 billion gallons of gasoline.

Companies like Wal-Mart have ongoing projects to develop more aerodynamic trucks that employ hybrid diesel-electric engines while UPS is already running as many as 1,400 alternative-fuel delivery vans.

The sting is also being felt in the railroad industry, with Union Pacific offering rewards to engineers who save the most fuel. Devices are also being used to shut down locomotives after 20 minutes idle time.

The chief financial officer for the Anacostia and Pacific Company, Bruce Liberman, in an article for the New York Times summed up the feeling of most operators in the current climate, "I am recoiling in horror at how much we spend on fuel."