Fuel price discussion thread (was ‘chaos’)

Uther said:
'Don't panic' says the government, so as usual the media stir it up and mass panic ensues.
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I'm normally all for blaming the media and politicians, but in fairness, all I've read in the media is that 50-70 BP garages are temporarily closed in the entire country, with 8200 of the 8300 petrol stations nationwide completely unaffected. And all I've heard from politicians is that there is indeed plenty of fuel and there is absolutely no need to panic. So naturally, I didn't panic at all, and carried on with my life.

The crux of the matter is that this is a problem with the selfish general public, nothing else. Some of it is from the same type of people who were fighting over toilet rolls 6 months ago and that were taking 15 cans of baked beans and 15 cans of soup during COVID, leaving nothing for anyone else. When all they had to do was....just do nothing. There is plenty for everyone, it's just these idiots that start off a Mexican wave of stupidity.

BUT a lot of the problem today isn't from these hardcore morons. It's from the everyday people who think "oooh, well I'm only on half a tank, but I better fill up now in case there is a shortage". And when you multiple that by 1 million times, it equals what we've seen today. Most of these people don't need that fuel, they're just worried about someone else taking it so they won't have it when they need it - but the irony is, by doing what they're doing, they're taking it from other people who need it. And let's not forget, whilst these idiots are sitting at home on Saturday and Sunday with nowhere to go, key workers who work 24/7 and who need that fuel to get to work tomorrow can't get any, because it's all sitting in the tanks of people who are home and off work for the weekend.

It's things like this which just erode away my faith in the general public. A large sector of the public can't see passed the end of their nose and would happily screw over everyone else around them, so that they were completely secure and weren't at any risk of having any inconvenience to themselves.
 
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Gaygle said:
I'm normally all for blaming the media and politicians, but in fairness, all I've read in the media is that 50-70 BP garages are temporarily closed in the entirely country, with 8200 of the 8300 petrol stations nationwide completely unaffected. And all I've heard from politicians is that there is indeed plenty of fuel and there is absolutely no need to panic. So naturally, I didn't panic at all, and carried on with my life.

The crux of the matter is that this is a problem with the selfish general public, nothing else. Some of it is from the same type of people who were fighting over toilet rolls 6 months ago and that were taking 15 cans of baked beans and 15 cans of soup during COVID, leaving nothing for anyone else. When all they had to do was....just do nothing. There is plenty for everyone, it's just these idiots that start off a Mexican wave of stupidity.

BUT a lot of the problem today isn't from these hardcore morons. It's from the everyday people who think "oooh, well I'm only on half a tank, but I better fill up now in case there is a shortage". And when you multiple that by 1 million times, it equals what we've seen today. Most of these people don't need that fuel, they're just worried about someone else taking it so they won't have it when they need it - but the irony is, by doing what they're doing, they're taking it from other people who need it. And let's not forget, whilst these idiots are sitting at home on Saturday and Sunday with nowhere to go, key workers who work 24/7 and who need that fuel to get to work tomorrow can't get any, because it's all sitting in the tanks of people who are home and off work for the weekend.

It's things like this which just erode away my faith in the general public. A large sector of the public can't see passed the end of their nose awould rather screw over everyone else around them, so that they were completely secure and weren't at any risk of having any inconvenience to themselves.
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Indeed, the sooner AI wipes us out the better. Nothing but a virus, destroying the planet.
 
Gaygle said:
I'm normally all for blaming the media and politicians, but in fairness, all I've read in the media is that 50-70 BP garages are temporarily closed in the entirely country, with 8200 of the 8300 petrol stations nationwide completely unaffected. And all I've heard from politicians is that there is indeed plenty of fuel and there is absolutely no need to panic. So naturally, I didn't panic at all, and carried on with my life.

The crux of the matter is that this is a problem with the selfish general public, nothing else. Some of it is from the same type of people who were fighting over toilet rolls 6 months ago and that were taking 15 cans of baked beans and 15 cans of soup during COVID, leaving nothing for anyone else. When all they had to do was....just do nothing. There is plenty for everyone, it's just these idiots that start off a Mexican wave of stupidity.

BUT a lot of the problem today isn't from these hardcore morons. It's from the everyday people who think "oooh, well I'm only on half a tank, but I better fill up now in case there is a shortage". And when you multiple that by 1 million times, it equals what we've seen today. Most of these people don't need that fuel, they're just worried about someone else taking it so they won't have it when they need it - but the irony is, by doing what they're doing, they're taking it from other people who need it. And let's not forget, whilst these idiots are sitting at home on Saturday and Sunday with nowhere to go, key workers who work 24/7 and who need that fuel to get to work tomorrow can't get any, because it's all sitting in the tanks of people who are home and off work for the weekend.

It's things like this which just erode away my faith in the general public. A large sector of the public can't see passed the end of their nose awould rather screw over everyone else around them, so that they were completely secure and weren't at any risk of having any inconvenience to themselves.
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Well put and it's what I've heard. Not once have I heard a shortage of fuel.

I did fill up tonight after work as my light was flashing and I'm taxi driver for the mrs at a gig tonight, working doing deliveries tomorrow night and Monday so will burn through a tank into Tuesday.

Local M+S had loads of pumps with unleaded off and the woman at the counter was saying they weren't going to run out but are now due to morons.
 
I am going up North to Leeds tomorrow so went on the off chance just now and only 99 momentum was left at the pumps which is all I use anyway. I managed to drive straight in and fill up. I use momentum anyway but the amount of diesels coming in and driving away was staggering considering it is is after 8pm.

Scania said:
In fairness to my current mob, I’ve been there since 2017 and in that time my pay has gone from £10.25 p/hr to £12 although the last rise was only a few months back, as I said in an earlier post, I was earning £9.75 p/hr in 2007, the wages have practically stood still for well over a decade.

Higher rates are being banded about but it’s often better the devil you know, a few local ones are offering higher rates but no guarantee of the rate being maintained i.e. once the shortage is eased they intend to drop the rates again….

Ultimately, I’ve been driving HGV’s for 23 years now yet am on the same hourly rate as a supermarket shelf stacker. Crazy given I drive a very efficient killing machine, the only way I make a decent wage is by doing 60+ hours every week.

Much as I enjoy the driving part of the job, as soon as my financial circumstances allow I’ll be leaving the industry which is a shame , unfortunately I’m far from alone in this thinking…
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I must be mental then as I passed my class 2 last week and have my class 1 next month. Already got my Tacho and doing my CPC next week. A lot of my friends who do it are on decent wages £15+ an hour and work 4 on 4 off shifts so the work life balance is pretty good. One thing they said to me was that you need to be a mercenary and loyalty just doesn't pay in the haulage industry. I passed my Class 2 with 3 minors but even still the training was intense and I was a bucket of sweat after my test. Getting paid £12 a hour is a joke when I have machine operators on similar wage who know their working hours and get three 40 minutes breaks in a 12 hour shift. It simply cannot continue like that as they will not get bums on seats otherwise. Tube and Train drivers get decent money and if anything Lorry driving is a more difficult and taxing job.

It isn't just the lorry industry that is on its knees but also food manufacturing and manufacturing in general. The place I work for has been shorting 10,000 cases of product a day at one site for months because it just cannot get the staff. Especially after the June 31st cut off date for settled status. Some days we were shorting 40-50 agency a day and having to shut down complete lines worth of production. I personally interviewed 30+ people for jobs over the last 6 months with less than 5 sticking it out for more than a week. Automation of a lot of these lines will be critical if these businesses want to survive in the future.
 
Scania said:
In fairness to my current mob, I’ve been there since 2017 and in that time my pay has gone from £10.25 p/hr to £12 although the last rise was only a few months back, as I said in an earlier post, I was earning £9.75 p/hr in 2007, the wages have practically stood still for well over a decade.
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I don't know about the HGV driver job market, but in principle I'm not happy to see that sort of rate for any job, and even less so for a skilled job like HGV driving.

Frankly it's a shocker. I had no idea that was the sort of rate.

Hopefully this current shortage will see pay rise for all drivers. Should definitely be an above-median salary job.
 
Although yes I don't think there is a shortage of petrol govt are lying about the gas, so dont blame the consumer if they don't trust them
Russians aren't shipping as much, it's going liquified to china instead, we don't have any stockpile, reduced volume out of uk territory ....
equally the truck driver shortage, yes, isn't related to Brexit, as schapps pleaded . (both the BBC , and news interviews with German transport market confirmed that)


Queues'll probably mean it's not practical to go far at the weekend now
 
The stupidly small tank on my 330e has been an utter pain yesterday/today, i was down to 1/4 tank and no charge, but seeing the queues and the BP/Shell ****ing station jacking up fuel costs, ive decided to ride it out, barring an emergency, i can make do with just charging. Hopefully things will have settled down by next week, its not as if the morons can stock pile fuel, like they did with bakes beans and bog roll.
 
I tried today but the ones I went to were taped off by the time I finished work.

I have 25 miles left and I have to get my daughter to a hospital appointment on Sunday which is a 24 mile round trip. I'm setting my alarm for 5am and will try again
 
Down to 30 miles. Guess I won't be driving this week.

Should have filled up at one of the many overpriced motorway service stations on the way home. They haven't yet been part of this panic buying from what I could tell.
 
I just went to test the car after doing some work on it but so to see if any places had petrol, two fairly local places did but they were full of herpderps queing up and as I have half a tank I've decided to adjust my driving plans instead of joining said queues. Let's hope the retards stop panicking next week...
 
Had 15 miles left in the tank, didn’t fancy waiting until tomorrow to fill up, especially as our friends were out trying to get diesel and most stations had ran out. Went to Tesco, absolutely madness. They had ran out of diesel but luckily they had unleaded.

They did have a tanker filling up the diesel while I was queuing.

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