Bad tempered people and petrol queues.

jaylucy

I believe the woman filling up several plastic containers was actually the manager of a care agency, getting emergency supplies for her staff so that they could continue providing home care for their clients.
Jumping to conclusions much ?

Were these plastic containers actually designed for transporting petrol? I doubt they were.

She had no right to endanger herself and others by transporting petrol

Not only that, it's illegal if not carried correctly

They must be “reasonably robust and not liable to break under the normal conditions of use”, designed to stop the escape of vapour, not liable to degrade due to contact with petrol, and clearly labelled with the words “petrol” and “highly flammable”.

@GagaJo
Actually this has nothing to do with Brexit. I did some research (No. Not the Daily Mail). There are 54,000 HGV licences held up at the DVLA. Also, I went on a German transport website. Lorry driver shortages in Germany. Lorry driver shortages in Poland. Our media is not reporting this....Lorry drivers in Britain and the continent are retiring (age and other less stressful jobs, wages etc) but trainee lorry drivers can't get the training they need because of Covid. And I also heard ( reliable source but haven't had time to verify this yet) that lorries / HGV vehicles arrive at the warehouses to collect goods but because of Covid (isolation knock on effect as well as actual cases) there aren't enough warehouse staff to load the lorries and HGV vehicles so the lorries and HGV are held in long queues. It's easy to automatically blame Brexit, but it's more complicated than that. But don't expect to see this in our media. Much of the media is headquartered in London - and guess what? London was heavily anti Brexit!

The media should be held to account for causing unnecessary panic buying.

Apologies for the long post, but sometimes I get cross with our media and as I have to do a lot of slumping on the sofa (long covid) I've actually had time to do a little research on a few things!

After the last toilet paper shortage I signed on with a subscription company so now all delivered every quarter, plastic free packaging, bamboo paper and no lugging it home!

Well-researched, Milliedog! ??

I didn't hurl any abuse at anybody but must say I felt pretty aggressive as I was stuck in traffic for more than an hour, held up by a petrol queue, on my way to a bank to arrange a payment for a house purchase. This should have been a 10 minute trip.
I only just got there in time and could cheerfully have strangled anybody who was putting in under £5 of petrol which I understand is pretty common as people fill up their tanks after short journeys.
If people could avoid such ridiculous purchases perhaps the queues would be shorter?
We're avoiding driving at the moment and don't intend to use any more petrol than we absolutely need to.
I agree with the idea that essential workers should be given priority but have no idea how this could be done, unless they have a slot early in the day as some supermarkets did for NHS workers and pensioners.
Another suggestion: If your tank won't take as much as £30 of petrol you still have to make a minimum peyment of £30.

Sarnia.
Makes you wonder how this same lot would have coped with six years of war.?

I think this is a storm cooked up by the media, day after day. If shortages weren’t mentioned, no-one would panic, and would go about their day to day business. They might encounter queues, rationing or temporary closures, but it would not escalate into a national emergency.
The aggression arises from fear that people may not be able to drive where they have to go then it’s a matter of who dares wins

Daisend1

*Sarnia*.
Makes you wonder how this same lot would have coped with six years of war.?

the same as those who did. Some with fortitude and kindness and consideration, some looking out for themselves and using the black market.

4allweknow

Filling up containers with fuel is strictly controlled ie one 1 gallon or less metal container only is allowed to be transported in a car. Those using plastic or more than one should be reportedly to the police.

is that true? I fill up a plastic petrol can like this to put in my mower. Even driving from the petrol station to home (under normal times) the container swells, so I'm not sure how evian bottles are going to fare.

Couldn't agree more, why does everything get blamed on Brexit. It is sadly a far wider issue, will the losers of that vote ever get over it and move on? It's a fixation for some, but we have to move to a new reality.

I wish people would quit with the Brexit rubbish. It’s nothing to do with Brexit, there is a Europe wide shortage of drivers and added to that quite a lot went home during Covid. There is a problem with drivers conditions and covid stopping tests for new HGV tests people need to get a grip, the shortage is because someone leaked that BP had to shut 5 forecourts - yes just 5 in the whole of the UK - so everyone went and filled up. It’ll all settle down and there is a limit to how many times you can fill your tank if you’re not using it and people need to stop ‘topping up’ and leaving it to those who are really on empty! No need for abuse is there, everyone is entitled to it!

Sarnia

My son-in-law has a short video on his phone from someone filming a lady trying to tie up the handles of a carrier bag two-thirds full of petrol. Sadly the video stops before it shows her attempting to lift it. I would have liked to have seen her attempting that.

I saw that video. Someone then commented that it was in the US, not here.
Not that that makes it ok

Many years ago while on holiday in Kenya we were told about a fuel tanker over turning on a forecourt at a fuel station. Hundreds of people, apparently, surged forward with unsuitable containers to get what they could for free.
The tanker blew up instantly incinerating those people trying to get fuel.
According to the person who told us this story it was not an uncommon event.
Is it not against the law to fill up an unsuitable container with fuel? As someone said to me recently “the trouble with common sense is it’s not very common”.

Can people stop saying its nothing to do with Brexit?

Most of us are competent enough to understand that there are several reasons for the fuel crisis and that Brexit makes it worse.

Pretending otherwise is disingenuous and lets the Brexiters off the hook.

This is what we did. "Go away Johnny foreigners, oh, but if you could come back for a few weeks to make sure we can have Christmas despite how we have treated you, then bugger orf again on Christmas Eve, that would be swell!"

Those that voted Tory and Brexit can look around and I am so sure they feel proud of the absolute mess they helped make. I feel so bad for the younger lot...its not fair. x

Those 5 stations must have been in my borough and the adjoining one

During the tanker drivers’ strike in 2000 we had letters from the head man to say we were key workers and we had to drive to the one garage in the area with fuel but providing it for key workers only. The system was put into place very early on and worked well. I can’t understand why something similar couldn’t have been set up within 24 hours. Or would it not have worked in 2021 with so many entitled people egged on by the media/social media.

Those that voted Tory and Brexit can look around and I am so sure they feel proud of the absolute mess they helped make. I feel so bad for the younger lot...its not fair

WE're not in a mess. The media tells me I'm in a mess but I'm fine, thanks

Many of the younger lot voted for Brexit. I was working in the CS with quite a few You'd be surprised how many wanted Brexit . They felt it wrong that we kept getting citizens from poorer nations to do our dirty work

Time iot invest and get the younger generation to realise that driving lorries isn't beneath them

Society has certainly degenerated. It's dog eat dog in this so called wealthy western democracy and unfortunately there's no sign of any improvement. Nobody seems to be able to own their mistakes (Brexit voters do you hear me?), and nobody seems to be able to avoid attributing negative motives to people queuing up to put fuel in their cars. As a psychotherapist (old enough to be self-isolating during the pandemic) I also volunteer for the NHS Check in and Chat and on Saturday morning I had no fewer than three calls to respond to, each one coming from a distressed elderly and disabled person who would be housebound without a car. Two of these people had been out with hubbies to do shopping and been unable to get into their supermarkets because of queues at the petrol pumps that were blocking the supermarket entrances, so here was one unwanted side effect of the queueing behaviour. The other 80 year old lady was crying because she needed petrol and couldn't drive around or queue because of sitting and bladder problems. I then saw a facebook photo posted by an irate person observing a young able-bodied man filling up ten petrol cans. He received much abuse. That man later responded with a photo of the care agency where he works, pointing out that his carers needed petrol to reach old and disabled people in the community who would otherwise lie in bed all day in their own urine and faeces and go without food - death probably a few days later - we are all so quick to judge on appearances and should stop to remind ourselves of how damaging that is to others but also to ourselves in generating levels of stress that will kill us in the end. Actually, there's only one person to blame for the possibility that our elderly may sit all day in wet beds and go hungry if carers can't get to them and that's our very privileged and thoughtless PM who told the country Brexit would be wonderful. Definitely Brexit own goal, and definitely to any Brexit voters moaning about petrol queues, well done mates - hope you can really look at the facts in front of your eyes and change your misguided narratives.

Well, I am glad everything is hunky dory for you Zoetory, but it isn't for everyone. I agree that we shouldn't be getting citizens from poorer nations to do our dirty work, but I am not sure that my Dutch vet would agree with your description. The abuse of people from poorer nations lies with exploitative employers and the public with our expectations of cheap food and goods, and this is certainly not a reason to vote to leave the EU which has more stringent employment laws than the UK is heading for.

JaneJudge I don’t think the Halfords can you link to is legal in a car. I think it’s supposed to have the diamond on it, signifying the type of danger. Obviously from the photos you can’t see the back.

I know the lorry driver mentioned by someone above is obviously wrong. You aren’t allowed to cary “excess” petrol but that’s up to the police to determine as they are asked to consider if it’s a "hazardous" or "a dangerous load."
2 cans are generally accepted as Ok if they meet the labelling requirements.

There are storage requirements to meet at home too.

Jaylucy it is illegal and dangerous to fill up containers that are not made to contain petrol as some will disintegrate from the chemicals and by law they have to marked as containing petrol. Filling stations should not be authorising pumps to anyone not using correct containers and filling up too many as there is also a limit on how much petrol you can "store". Might be a thoughtful thing to do but not much use if she goes up in flames or dies from poisoning when the containers leak (fuel containers have special seals) in her vehicle. I have bought half a tank this week from a well organised petrol station and that will have to do until this nonsense is over. If I can I will walk to appointments or cancel to preserve fuel for necessary journeys. Our local supermarkets are still getting daily deliveries as they always have done its just numpties panicking and causing hysteria like they did with the toilet rolls. According to hgv driver sources there are no fewer registered tanker drivers now than there were a month/2 months ago but because a couple of forecourts closed due to their supply issues the media picked it up and off went the idiots to cause a shortage by overbuying. This is why I prefer animals, humans are their own worst enemies ?

Until the possibility of a fuel shortage was splashed across the headlines there was no problem filling up. There was no shortage of ADR qualified HGV drivers snd everywhere had fuel.