So the cost of fuel jumps up over 20 percent virtually overnight, and I start making contingency plans for how I’m going to weave my way through the miles of trucks that are surely going to queue up in protest on Hwy. 401 the next morning.

But there was no such demonstration that day — or the next day, or the next week after that. Just the same red wall of brake lights that greets me every morning as I wind down the onramp.

So, where have all the protestors gone? Well, it seems that parking your truck on a major highway to rage against oil prices is just, well… so 1999. Other than a few wildcat regional protests (and an ill-advised month-long strike by a group of can haulers at the Port of Vancouver), we’re not seeing the nation-wide, linehaul strikes of years past when the price of diesel rose only a fraction of the rate it’s climbing today.

I mean no disrespect to the pulp and lumber haulers in Grand Falls, N.B., or loggers in Prince George, B.C., who are at their wits’ end trying to get surcharges from a handful of companies that monopolize very tight sectors. But generally speaking, times are still good enough to mitigate the sting of these surprise spikes.

Unlike the energy crisis of the early ’70s (yeah, I know, I was barely an idea then) today’s increases are mainly a result of a soaring demand for oil, not choking of supply. When the problem is related to demand, it generally signifies that economic growth is solid.

Look around. Over the last year, oil rose incrementally from around $50 to $70 a barrel — even before Hurricane Katrina — and it seemed to me that the number of Oakville soccer moms peering over the dashes of their brand new Cadillac Escalades kept going up right along with it.

It’s no secret that a core group of linehaul carriers and many LTL fleets have had it good for a couple of years now. It took a while, no doubt, but there’s evidence that some of that has filtered down into drivers’ wallets.

According to a one-of-a-kind national survey on driver pay by Toronto-based Cerno Research, total pay for truck drivers jumped by an average of 8 percent over the last year — one of the largest increases in any labour sector. The wage hike reflects pay at the 50th percentile — meaning highway truckers directly from the middle of the pay scale.

“We were not surprised to see a pay increase this year, but we were surprised at the amount,” Cerno project director Stephen Harrington told me. “Eight percent is a pretty steep change for any industry year-to-year. Even in a good market you might see that kind of change at the upper end, but usually not in the middle. That’s impressive in itself.”

There are signs, however, that carriers and owner-ops won’t be as well insulated from these volatile cost shifts much longer. For one thing, shippers are starting to push back as they now find themselves as squeezed as truckers did four years ago, and are pressuring their transport providers to give back some of their financial gains.

Whether the industry is able to keep steady for the foreseeable future or not, one thing is clear: It better prepare for these sudden oil price spikes as a way of life.

Whether it’s an act of God taking out pipelines and refineries, China demanding a few million more barrels, or the thugs at OPEC announcing a major downshift in production, the oil market is more sensitive to global events than ever — and the shockwaves, as we saw with Katrina, move fast.

As a Chevron Corp. ad appearing in newspapers across the US recently stated: “Energy will be one of the defining issues of this century. One thing is clear: the era of easy oil is over … We call upon scientists and educators, politicians and policymakers, environmentalists, leaders of industry and each one of you to be part of reshaping the next era of energy.”

No doubt we must continue investing in alternative energy, biofuel, and hydrogen-based fuel cells, and more importantly, accept them as a necessity for the future.

Our governments, for one, talk a good game. But billions more of our fuel tax dollars are going straight into their coffers as a result of the increases of 2005. That money, of course, will never be spilled back into roads or the pockets of road users. Perish the thought.

But maybe just a slice of all that extra juice, to use a betting term, will go into more technology research that makes us less dependent on fossil fuels. It’s not like the Libs will have to scale back their feeding troughs or anything. This is Canada after all.

They’ll just make it up by taxing whatever we’re putting into our tanks 50 years from now — water, plants, popcorn, whatever. Joy all around.