petrol stations price discussion (was ‘chaos’)

Soldato
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8 Dec 2005
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Too busy saying ‘it’s fine, don’t panic’ with little action. It’s becoming a real problem across London.
South East as well. Drove through Sussex, Bucks & Surrey earlier today. Few stations were open most were shut with no fuel signs (all Esso forecourts BTW). Also noted on the signs Beaconsfield services was out of fuel :eek: that's a massively busy place if drivers cannot reach it they will go bankrupt fast. The roads were almost deserted people obviously do not even have the fuel to drive right now its becoming a serious problem.
 
Soldato
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8 Dec 2005
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That’s the next problem. We have no choice either :(
Tell me about it! I had to pay 1.53L for super unleaded early yesterday morning :eek: the forecourts are allowed an 8% variance in what they can charge over the RRP from the supplier so watch it climb higher before it drops again :mad:
 
Soldato
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Guernsey
Wonder how long it be before this fuel shortage hits guernsey

I hadn't seen any problems with getting fuel over here yet, but am very lucky it only a very small island so i only use about £35 of fuel per week
 
Soldato
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The fuel pricescrisis in Britain pushes the use of scooters
-> There was an overall increase of 33 percent in the number of trips from 06:00 to 09:00 on weekdays. Jack Samler, general manager of Voi UK and Ireland, said: “The past few days have shown a significant increase in people wanting to try our electric scooters and have offered people a new alternative mode of transport.”

if general inflation wasn't going to help with used ice prices, fuel prices will.
 
Man of Honour
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Southampton, UK
Given we have a huge domestic driver shortage (and a supposed freedom to unshackle ourselves from E.U. regulations here) and many many licensed HGV drivers who don’t hold this qualification - and therefore cannot drive) then surely removing this requirement for domestic drivers would open up an large and existing pool of U.K. drivers to the industry instead of pleading for 5000 foreign ones to come over for three months, most of whom have no interest in coming especially after the fiasco in Kent at the end of last year…

Do you think the CPC is the biggest barrier for people who have a licence but don't want the work?

I thought this was an interesting insight:
 
Caporegime
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On the road....
Do you think the CPC is the biggest barrier for people who have a licence but don't want the work?

I thought this was an interesting insight:
Yes, frankly I know the CPC is holding many back from returning to the job…

Ignoring the hours, pay, lack of respect, hours (I mention that twice deliberately) etc etc etc….
 

Deleted member 66701

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Deleted member 66701

Crisis over here, every station yesterday had all fuels and pumps working, normal queues. Even managed to fill the Westfield up with super in between the rain showers.
 
Caporegime
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Yes, frankly I know the CPC is holding many back from returning to the job…

Ignoring the hours, pay, lack of respect, hours (I mention that twice deliberately) etc etc etc….
Couldn’t believe it when he said that after your nine hours companies expect you to start work again. You could drop your last load at 6pm and then find somewhere to park by 7. Your downtime starts and then nine hours later, 4am, you’re expected to be back in the cab, if you ever even left it depending on where you are and be back on the road? That’s ridiculous, no other job would expect that! No wonder no one wants to do it!
 
Soldato
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Lincoln, Uk
It seems to mostly London and that corner of the country suffering now. Maybe its not "crisis over" here where I am (east mids) but its certainly not a massive problem, went to fill up van with diesel on Friday evening, Morisons was out of Diesel but was still supplying petrol and there were no queues, drive down the road to sainsburys and they had Diesel but some pumps were out of unleaded, but it was straight in and no queuing. So I guess still levels are still depleted here but you can still get it, and there are not massive queues to do so.

Is it something to do with the ratio of storage capacity at stations to the number of cars in the area? Do they go more towards the just in time model in London, but not so much in for example Lincolnshire, where it is a big county with long winding roads and a lot of petrol stations that in rural towns and villages?
 
Caporegime
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On the road....
Couldn’t believe it when he said that after your nine hours companies expect you to start work again. You could drop your last load at 6pm and then find somewhere to park by 7. Your downtime starts and then nine hours later, 4am, you’re expected to be back in the cab, if you ever even left it depending on where you are and be back on the road? That’s ridiculous, no other job would expect that! No wonder no one wants to do it!

The 9 hour rest period is supposed to be for drivers who sleep overnight in the vehicle, unfortunately, it still applies for drivers doing day shifts i.e. in that 9 hour period you travel back home , do your evening routine, tea, bath, walk the dog etc etc sleep and be expected back on duty 9 hours later, you can legally do this 3 times on the bounce ie 15hrs on, 9 off….

The driver hours are supposed to be limits but the industry treats them as targets and you are frequently planned to do maximum hours.

Makes a complete mockery of road safety….
 
Joined
4 Aug 2007
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Wilds of suffolk
All stations are in effect JIT
The issue is that every year more stations close. Its becoming more centralised with supermarkets etc in effect gaining a larger share each year.

Whilst there are more stations in higher population dense areas, per head they are much lower.

What compounds the issue is that there is far less buffer in the system (this is basically what JIT does). No need for thousands of extra stations all sitting on thousands of litres of fuels, when far fewer stations, being topped up frequently normally seemlessly support the needs.

When there is supply disruption which happens in bad winters etc as well, then as long as they can keep it just high enough to not cause any massive panic then no one notices, a few stations may run low but no one notices. If there is just enough buffer there despite JIT then all good.
As soon as the supply falls below the demand it quickly becomes apparent.

Every industry, which most do, that operates JIT has the same issues. Some will get round it with emergency protocols, such as some emergency stock etc, but in general its the biggest failing by some margin of the whole system.
 
Joined
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Wilds of suffolk
The driver hours are supposed to be limits but the industry treats them as targets and you are frequently planned to do maximum hours.

Its a very widespread thing unfortunately.
We humans are not great at using limits and as you say we tend to draw towards them as targets.
Limits are generally implemented to restrict something to an agreed maximum, since this is to stop people going further in a certain direction its not really surprising that businesses will tend to be close to those limits since by default they would go further if they could.

e.g Maximum speed limit = target for most for example. I even had one person say it was the target per the highway code, I told him to go and find me a copy that said that, he never came back ;)
 
Soldato
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1 Mar 2008
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Deep North
Passed my local Shell at 8pm last night and all pumps were open and only one car on the forecourt. Passed again this morning at 10am and again only one car and one motorbike filling up. So I swung in and topped my tank back up to the brim. Sorted!

Must be a north south divide thing.
 
Caporegime
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24 Oct 2012
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Godalming
Yup. Just been to Tesco to pick up a big shop. No queue. Everything in, all pumps working and half the pumps had a vehicle at them.

Come up North, we're more civilised. :D

Please remove your hand from your mouth when talking to me, the webbing between your fingers muffles your speech :D
 
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