Petrol queues reported now on BBC news

This has aged well, not ...

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Love this tweet:
"All you people moaning about petrol shortages caused by Brexit ?. I’m absolutely fine. I saw this coming ages ago and had my car converted to run on sovereignty. I get about 25 furlongs to the tugged forelock."

MDR Mamie.

Will be travelling to UK by train for Christmas.

GreenGran78 thank-you for your mention of me in your post
Sunday 26th. Yes I have got plenty of tinned items in stock in my home and very glad I have I brought them in the months over several lockdowns as what are people supposed to do? in fact people are saying how bare the shelves are looking in the shops again which I have also noticed. If I hear of any of my
neighbours out of some of the tinned stuff they are more than welcome to some of mine,
To get back to what this post is about then as far as I am concerned I am not one of the luckier ones that managed to get petrol and yesterday myself and neighbour went out in his car to see what is open. Right then 3 local ones closed and pumps taped over all empty One was open with a two mile tail back and all the road blocked and my neighbour said it was pointless waiting to which I agreed.
I watched Grant Shapps on TV telling people to just buy as normal and he was smirking as he talked like all the people who already know that you cannot just buy normally because many of the garages are now closed. I have a few local shops so can get there to buy my milk and bread so it is just as well I have a few supplies in. Mr Shapps would not hold himself to a reply about sending the army in with trucks for haulage preferring to say we just don't need it and people should not panic. ABSOLUTELY LAUGHABLE.

Maybe the people of Europe aren’t as stupid and selfish as those in the UK and don’t rush out panic buying and, quite literally, causing a shortage.

All the petrol stations are closed here but now people are panic buying food. Loads of lactose free products are now unavailable and out of stock except for on amazon where the prices have been inflated no flipping frozen pizzas left anywhere. If this human behaviour has been triggered by a lack of trust during the pandemic, I wouldn't be surprised.

Returning home from looking after 2 of my grandchildren this morning and with my petrol gauge teetering on red, I travelled a route which would take me past 6 petrol stations. All closed except the last one and the nearest to my home. I joined the end of a very long queue and took almost an hour to reach the pumps. When I was filling my car, the manager was refusing to let 2 men fill petrol cans. This was greeted by toots and cheers by other drivers.

I just love your response to my earlier post to you, tickingbird

Maybe the people of Europe aren’t as stupid and selfish as those in the UK and don’t rush out panic buying and, quite literally, causing a shortage.

How many people can be insulted in one post? 66million, it seems ???

No Maizie D not 66 million, only the selfish, me, me swathe of the population. Nice try but fell somewhat short.

The medià play a huge negative part I think as if they didn't say people are panic buying, people wouldn't know anything was up and wouldn't worry about it. It's all scare mongering. ( In my opinion ) but we are all entitled to have different views.

Sarnia

Returning home from looking after 2 of my grandchildren this morning and with my petrol gauge teetering on red, I travelled a route which would take me past 6 petrol stations. All closed except the last one and the nearest to my home. I joined the end of a very long queue and took almost an hour to reach the pumps. When I was filling my car, the manager was refusing to let 2 men fill petrol cans. This was greeted by toots and cheers by other drivers.

My son is a senior nurse and travels almost 40 miles to work. A tank of petrol barely lasts him a week. If one of those men is in a similar position I hope people will be happy when the wards are empty.

Judging people when you don't know anything about them is petty.

MaizieD

Inevitable, wasn't it?

Yes it was after the media spread false rumours about lack of petrol and drivers, who are licensed differently from HGV drivers.
Petrol tanker drivers have an ADR qualification as well as a HGV licence. They need this for them to drive fuel tanker lorries.
There is a shortage of HGV drivers. That's a true fact.
However, HGV drivers can't drive a petrol tanker lorry without having an ADR qualification.
The UK had ADR drivers last week. Nothing changed much in a week. Maybe some holiday or some sickness but not, I doubt a dramatic change.
The ADR drivers that were driving last week are probably driving this week delivering fuel so nothing changed much.
The petrol panic we are now experiencing is all down to media hype.
It's not because of Brexit, because all the EU drivers went back to Europe which is some of the reasons being banded about.
These EU HGV drivers left months ago, and yet the country was still getting fuel without problems up until today.

So what's changed? NOTHING !!

Apart from the disgraceful media hype and scaremongering to make news to sensationalise the fact that a couple of petrol stations were getting a late delivery so they closed temporarily.

The result of the media scaremongering!!

Massive panic and chaos by everyone which is now causing a shortage of fuel until the ADR drivers, that we already had delivering fuel a few days ago, can deliver again.
The media should be fined and penalised, severely for publicising false news and creating the crazy situation that has been going on all today. Disgusting. They should hold their heads in shame.

(Copied and re-posted for general info.)

Media hype might have aggravated this, but there were signs of problems over a week before this hit the news!

As I have said elsewhere, OH and I became aware that there was a potential problem well before it hit the news.

We were on holiday in a diesel vehicle, and kept passing filling stations that had no diesel (or only had Premium).
And having just checked put two of the filling stations in question, I am fairly sure that one was Esso, not BP. It wasn't just one day - it had no ordinary diesel for at least 5 days.

It's OK saying that there is no fuel shortage, but if the product you need isn't reaching the places where you need to purchase it, there really is no difference between a shortage and a supply issue!

Panic has not caused this problem - it is just a totally predictable result of it.

We saw a petrol tanker on the A1 today and I said to DH ‘quick, follow it!’Mind you all the petrol stations on the A1 we’re working normally. It was only when we got back into suburbia that they were all closed.

What I did find interesting was that I saw notices on the back of some of the lorries saying’we are recruiting for more drivers’. I’m assuming that this isn’t new it’s just that I’ve had no reason to notice it till now which convinces me that it has been an ongoing problem for quite a while but has been ignored by the government.

LincsLass well done for your post above, but really I think several of us have given up on putting the real case about petrol as some posters want to run with any scenario but the true one.

lemongrove

LincsLass well done for your post above, but really I think several of us have given up on putting the real case about petrol as some posters want to run with any scenario but the true one.

So you don't believe that there was already a problem before the media reported it?

Do you think I have lied about the fuel supply problems we noticed well over a week earlier?

If there wasn't a shortage then, there would be once the MSM have reported on it. Let's face it, a news programme showing queues of vehicles waiting for petrol is a lot more newsworthy that one or two cars getting served as normal. News programmes are as bad as the Government for fear mongering.

I heard Grant Schnapps (I'm sorry I don't know how his name is spelt) on the radio saying it wasn't the governments problem that people wanted immediate access to buying petrol if they needed it

The government has been told by the RHA that the temporary visas are not good enough to solve the problem.

The petrol retailers association has said that between 50% and 90% of retailers say that their forecourts are running dry.

There is plenty of fuel but useless to the motorists in the refineries

BBC

Gosh it doesn’t seem to be improving in the short term. We have held off from buying petrol in the expectation that the government would quickly sort it just as the Blair government had done, but it doesn’t seem to be the case. We have a little less than a quarter of a tank so cannot spare any to go out searching for fuel. Bugger.

we haven't filled up either

Well done to those of you who've delayed filling up. Those who really need their cars for work - or to get there - have a better chance thanks to you.

All I seem to be hearing, though, from people around here (who don't even need their cars) is 'I filled up/topped up, just in case it gets worse' in a proud/smug tone of voice - what complete idiots!

The Times is reporting that Johnson is going to take a leaf out of the Blair government and send in the army to tackle the fuel crises. He appears to be resigned to the fact that the temporary visas will not cut it.

MamaCaz

lemongrove

LincsLass well done for your post above, but really I think several of us have given up on putting the real case about petrol as some posters want to run with any scenario but the true one.

So you don't believe that there was already a problem before the media reported it?

Do you think I have lied about the fuel supply problems we noticed well over a week earlier?

Over a week earlier there were no problems in my area, at all. BP closed 20 filling stations, in the whole of the country. No need for panic buying, this was exacerbated by the media.

How can the army help if very few of them (according to GG13 a few pages ago)are qualified to drive tankers with hazardous loads?

I expect the situation will ease over the next few days anyway, as the idiots must be full to saturation point by now.

Ironically, I went to my local garage, no diesel but plenty of petrol, to put enough in my tank to get it to half full (not wanting to take fuel I didn't need) only to be told it was closing today for 10 days for a refurb... I'm now wondering if that will spook the locals and set them all off again ?