Go ahead, keep grousing about their 18-wheelers looming impossibly close in your rear-view mirror or slaloming through high-speed interstate traffic with all the agility of a manatee.

And if you must, blame them for those nylon mesh caps that Ashton Kutcher and the wannabe hipsters in Hollywood seized in a fit of ill-conceived irony.

Just know that Craig Brown and other independent long-haul truckers feel even more pain at the pump than you. At a time when diesel fuel prices have reached $4 a gallon, truckers have seen their 200-gallon fill-ups eat into their narrow profit margins.

The same pit stop that used to cost Brown about $550 last year on his produce runs from Frostproof, Fla., to New England grocery stores now cost him close to $800.

"And a lot of that comes right off the bottom line for us, because a lot of our contractors aren't wanting to pay more to have their stuff delivered," Brown said during a stop Thursday at the Big Boy's truck stop in Kenly.

"I've been in a long time, and I'm seriously considering getting out of it," said Brown, 48. "If my truck and trailer weren't paid for, I'd be hurting even more."

With profits plunging, Brown and other independent truckers -- known as owner-operators -- parked their rigs April 1 in a one-day strike to protest fuel costs. According to the American Trucking Association, there are about 400,000 owner-operators hauling loads of produce, meat and other goods across the country.

Estimates on how many truckers participated nationally in scattered protests are hard to calculate, however. The New Jersey Turnpike Authority told The Associated Press last week that southbound trucks "as far as the eye can see" were rumbling along at 20 mph as part of an organized slowdown.

At the Port of Tampa, more than 50 drivers took the day off while demanding that contractors pay them more to cover fuel costs and other expenses.

Federal law prohibits trade associations such as the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association from calling for strikes, yet individual drivers spread the word through Web sites such as OvertimeTruckers.com and TruckertoTrucker.com.

Only a few of the truckers who rolled through Big Boy's Truck Stop on Thursday said they had participated in the strike two days earlier. Yet most of them were united in using the same, colorful language to describe the $3.899 a gallon they were paying that rainy afternoon for diesel fuel. (Think R-rated mad-libs as in, "Too [insert your favorite expletive] expensive.")

It's small consolation to the truckers when truck stop operators say they're feeling the pinch, also.

Mindy Long, a spokeswoman for NATSO, a national trade association representing travel plaza and truck stop owners, said truck stops are not reaping the benefits of higher diesel prices.

"Not only are they also paying more for the fuel, but they're paying more for the credit-card transactions, because all those credit card fees are percentage-based," Long said. "Basically right now, the credit card companies are asking at least 8 cents per gallon on a transaction."

And no one is paying for a 200-gallon diesel fill-up in cash, said Wendi Powell, the office manager at Big Boy's, one of the few family-owned truck stops left on I-95.

Joseph Sims, 69, paused in the rain at Big Boy's on Thursday to transfer pallets of tomatoes from his trailer to the cab of his Peterbilt truck. The Manning, S.C., driver had been in Tampa, Fla., two days earlier and was among the truckers who struck that day.

"Everybody wants to keep [consumer] prices down," he said, "but as the fuel prices go up, we have to pass it on eventually."

Asked how much effect the one-day strike had, Sims shrugged.

"Very little," he said. "The only way it was going to be effective is if we shut down nationwide."