Panic buying

[Neil]

1 hour ago, SM42 said:

 

Unfortunately the majority don't like paying for such levels of service.

 

Andy

 

I'm not so sure. I believe that most would see health and social care provision as a priority and would support spending in this area. Who gets to pay for it is determined by the government who choose where the tax burden falls. None of this should be seen as detracting from the excellent and public spirited service of first responders.

[57xx]

8 hours ago, andytrains said:

CRF.

Why are we having to do this ?

 

 

Because there is a large element of society now who only think of themselves and really haven't got enough braincells to work out they are the cause of the problem.

[Coldgunner]

Friend of mine works at the local petrol station. People queuing from before opening, buying £20-£30 of fuel (most cars I'm guessing are £60-£70 for a full tank). People arguing and fighting, blocking up the main access roads and generally being pricks. Curiously they're not all rushing to buy the premium fuels. Admittedly I've had to fill up from a 1/3 tank the other night as I've got a long drive Monday and Wednesday, I'd have done this anyway as part of my long trip preparation. Most of the pricks will be dropping their precious offspring at school 5 mins walk away and then back home again to work*.

*I'm aware not everyone wfh now, but I'm trying to emphasise that people are filling a tiny bit "just in case", when they wouldn't have needed fuel for weeks anyway.

It doesn't help that the national and local rags are reporting issues, with the locals reporting which stations are apparently running out and when they get deliveries.

[Jonboy]

Round here there was the issue that to meet the government set targets (something like arriving at 90% of category 1 calls, such as suspected heart attacks, within 7 minutes)  the local ambulance had to focus their resource standby points based in the percentage of population. I.e the towns and city that housed 75%+ of the county’s population, and shift patterns focused on typical levels of activity.

 

This meant that the rural areas were seeing a far longer response time simply because the ambulance service were doing what the government told them to do via Whitehall mandated targets…..the CFR schemes in the area initially linked up rural members of  St John Ambulance and the Red Cross (and then got other members of the public to join the schemes directly), with the right training, equipment and the correct communications with the ambulance service to get treatment started whilst the paramedics and ambulances made their way there .

I did originally join a scheme and all the calls I was sent to were within 2 miles of home, and one was with 100 yards. The ambulance service were normally there within 10-15 minutes but the cfr scheme meant treatment was started and AEDs were deployed more often within the critical timeframe.

 

(Now I live within 5 minutes of the local ambulance station there isn’t a local scheme to join).

 

It would have been nice to have many more ambulances in the county around the clock, but this comes up against the same sort of funding arguments the railway encounters:

• how many extra idle trains should be sat around just for summer specials/football ex’s etc.
• shouldn’t there be fleets of coach’s and drivers sat around just in case of disruption or line blockages.

[boxbrownie]

16 hours ago, MJI said:

I am having to work in the office next week and the commute for the week is more than what is left in the tank.

 

Currently investigating maximum amount of cooking oil I can mix in before wrecking fuel pump or injectors.

 

Tractor juice is sold out.

We had 10K litres delivered last week……..no issues at all, and talking to the suppliers they were prioritising existing commercial customers rather than fuel stations.

[boxbrownie]

9 hours ago, andytrains said:

CRF.

Why are we having to do this ?

The Government should be be funding these services with enough money to provide the level of service we need and deserve.

 

 

They have been giving the service for a very long time, we had need to call 999 one Christmas eve about ten years ago go when Mum was found sitting unresponsive in the kitchen, the FR arrived within literally minutes and  lay her down gave oxygen and she was recovered and sitting joking with the FR when the ambulance arrived about 20 minutes after the call, what we didn’t know was she had fainted/passed out and not had the usual response of falling down (her dressing gown and hooked over the chair back post) so the body would naturally bring oxygenated blood to the brain, the FR knew exactly what to do and it saved probably a worse incident that could have needed Mum going to hospital.

 

A brilliant volunteer service, along with many others which decent people give up their time for.

[SamThomas]

14 hours ago, SM42 said:

In the meantime I have become a hyper miler. 

I apologise to all those I may delay as I pull off the lights nice and gently. 

 

Andy

 

Every logistics company I have worked for in the past (except 1 - a well known supermarket) say that pulling smartly away & getting into the highest gear practivable is better for overall fuel economy - with all their investments in telematics that should tell you something.

[spikey]

2 hours ago, Jonboy said:

 .. and AEDs were deployed more often within the critical timeframe.

 

What on earth are AEDs?

[boxbrownie]

8 minutes ago, spikey said:

 

What on earth are AEDs?

Defibrillators…..the small automatic type.

[Sir TophamHatt]

Another thought about this panic buying petrol thing... 

 

Wasn't there a shortage.. a real shortage back in the 90s? Sure my sister had to leave her Ford Sierra down in Devon through lack of petrol.

But I'm sure there was no panic buying... people just filled up when they ran out and if you didn't NEED it, you didn't fill up.

 

Perhaps in 15 years people have got more selfish or perhaps more reliant on the car.

 

But then those people still speeding round after everyone else ran out, shame they don't need an ambulance and the 999 people say they can't come out as there's no fuel.

[woodenhead]

2 minutes ago, Sir TophamHatt said:

Another thought about this panic buying petrol thing... 

 

Wasn't there a shortage.. a real shortage back in the 90s? Sure my sister had to leave her Ford Sierra down in Devon through lack of petrol.

But I'm sure there was no panic buying... people just filled up when they ran out and if you didn't NEED it, you didn't fill up.

 

Perhaps in 15 years people have got more selfish or perhaps more reliant on the car.

 

But then those people still speeding round after everyone else ran out, shame they don't need an ambulance and the 999 people say they can't come out as there's no fuel.

The internet has happened since then, now people share tales of grief and create panic

[big jim]

I did consider going to the Bachmann sales event in quorn today but quite simply didn’t have the fuel in the car to get there so I went out witg the bike on the roof to ride the leek and manifold railway, fuel light came on just past Stoke which would have just got me home but on the way back I’ve managed to get £20 of diesel in the car at leek without issue, no queue, could have been selfish and filled it up but £20 will last me a couple of weeks now! 
 

Lack of fuel I can live with but what’s upsetting me is the lack of breakfast omelette in every branch of Greggs I’ve been into this last week! 

[hayfield]

15 minutes ago, Sir TophamHatt said:

Another thought about this panic buying petrol thing... 

 

Wasn't there a shortage.. a real shortage back in the 90s? Sure my sister had to leave her Ford Sierra down in Devon through lack of petrol.

But I'm sure there was no panic buying... people just filled up when they ran out and if you didn't NEED it, you didn't fill up.

 

Perhaps in 15 years people have got more selfish or perhaps more reliant on the car.

 

But then those people still speeding round after everyone else ran out, shame they don't need an ambulance and the 999 people say they can't come out as there's no fuel.

 

 

I really think on Thursday when the TV news stations were reporting outside empty petrol stations, though clearly stating that there was no shortage and was only affecting a few petrol stations. Tipped the balance from a non story to mass panic

 

Now I know that a report from a petrol station which had both petrol and no queues is bad TV, but certainly I would have been expected a better level of accurate reporting from the BBC who are supposed to be an unbiased and reliable source of news, rather than completing with the gutter press. As a public broadcaster they should have been reassuring people rather than spreading panic

 

Clearly those who had an agenda to cause damage to either the public or government for their own ends won in this case 

[hayfield]

2 minutes ago, big jim said:

I did consider going to the Bachmann sales event in quorn today but quite simply didn’t have the fuel in the car to get there so I went out witg the bike on the roof to ride the leek and manifold railway, fuel light came on just past Stoke which would have just got me home but on the way back I’ve managed to get £20 of diesel in the car at leek without issue, no queue, could have been selfish and filled it up but £20 will last me a couple of weeks now! 
 

Lack of fuel I can live with but what’s upsetting me is the lack of breakfast omelette in every branch of Greggs I’ve been into this last week! 

 

We were holidaying in Cornwall with my wife's parents, filled the car up on Friday morning with not too much effort (we passed 2 petrol stations with large queues). We used about an eighth of the tank up that day sight seeing. We knew we had enough petrol to get back to the parents house (Kent) but my plan to top up the tank once it got down to half worked, whilst some petrol stations were very busy on the A303 we found one without and queues and 5p per litre less than most. Good job we did as the nearer we got to London the petrol stations were empty on both the motorways and those we passed in Kent

[Fat Controller]

25 minutes ago, woodenhead said:

The internet has happened since then, now people share tales of grief and create panic

I remember the tanker drivers' strike in the late 1970s/ early 1980s; there was certainly panic-buying then, along with price-hikes and ad-hoc rationing. There was a service-station on the Stoke end of Leek Road which was particularly notorious, as they didn't display the price apart from at the pumps. An acquaintance put a steel hawser around one of the pumps, and hooked the other end to his Land-Rover, and started to drive off really slowly....Their pricing display policy changed soon after.

[Titan]

58 minutes ago, Sir TophamHatt said:

Wasn't there a shortage.. a real shortage back in the 90s? Sure my sister had to leave her Ford Sierra down in Devon through lack of petrol.

But I'm sure there was no panic buying... people just filled up when they ran out and if you didn't NEED it, you didn't fill up.

 

Perhaps in 15 years people have got more selfish or perhaps more reliant on the car.

 

But then those people still speeding round after everyone else ran out, shame they don't need an ambulance and the 999 people say they can't come out as there's no fuel.

 

When the price of fuel reached 80p a litre in the late 90's - possibly early 00's there was a lorry drivers strike to try and force the government to reduce road fuel duty. They formed picket lines/blockades outside the few refineries we had preventing any tankers from leaving, but even then the petrol stations did not run out of fuel so quick.

[Steamport Southport]

3 minutes ago, Titan said:

 

When the price of fuel reached 80p a litre in the late 90's - possibly early 00's there was a lorry drivers strike to try and force the government to reduce road fuel duty. They formed picket lines/blockades outside the few refineries we had preventing any tankers from leaving, but even then the petrol stations did not run out of fuel so quick.

 

2000.

 

Started by Welsh/Cheshire farmers at Stanlow, Ellesmere Port ISTR. Called themselves Farmers For Justice or something like that.

[woodenhead]

1 hour ago, Fat Controller said:

I remember the tanker drivers' strike in the late 1970s/ early 1980s; there was certainly panic-buying then, along with price-hikes and ad-hoc rationing. There was a service-station on the Stoke end of Leek Road which was particularly notorious, as they didn't display the price apart from at the pumps. An acquaintance put a steel hawser around one of the pumps, and hooked the other end to his Land-Rover, and started to drive off really slowly....Their pricing display policy changed soon after.

Strikes are different, it's a complete cut off, not knowing when more supplies will arrive so people do rush out, because everyone read the papers and then acted.   Now with the internet a small thing becomes a big thing and panic ensues.

[melmerby]

1 hour ago, big jim said:

 

Lack of fuel I can live with but what’s upsetting me is the lack of breakfast omelette in every branch of Greggs I’ve been into this last week! 

I thought that Gregg's would be doing you a favour

[Andy Hayter]

1 hour ago, Titan said:

 

When the price of fuel reached 80p a litre in the late 90's - possibly early 00's there was a lorry drivers strike to try and force the government to reduce road fuel duty. They formed picket lines/blockades outside the few refineries we had preventing any tankers from leaving, but even then the petrol stations did not run out of fuel so quick.

 

I think petrol stations were probably better stocked then.

This hasn't just started with a handful of stations stocking out.  I am pretty sure that the producers have been holding back deliveries for as long as they sensibly could and priorising those stations closest to running out.   Consequently just about all of the stations were running on lower than usual stock unless they had just received a delivery.    A delay in delivery of a couple of days would normally not be a problem but as the driver shortage has become more and more acute, a couple of days stretches to nearly a week and then the cracks start to show. 

 

What it means is that on average stations were carrying less fuel in their tanks than usual and hence why many places have run out very quickly.  

 

One of the stations interviewed on Saturday had said that their Friday sales were three times the normal and so they now had no fuel and no replenishment for 8-9 days.  If 3 times normal daily take empties the tanks then without panic buying they would have been out of fuel by the end of the weekend anyway.  That I think is the tightrope that has been trod probably for many months by the oil producers.

[ejstubbs]

I suspect that another issue compounding the problem is the decline in the number of non-supermarket petrol stations - probably due in part to the aggressive pricing of the supermarkets.  Although you might think that it's just replacing Esso/Shell/BP/independent petrol stations with those at supermarkets, I'm pretty sure that I read a figure of 1½ to 2 non-supermarket stations closing for every supermarket one that opens - the supermarket stations having the added advantage of convenience.  So the result is fewer petrol stations overall.  It also tends to concentrate petrol stations in urban areas; you only have to drive around the Scotland for a bit to realise that (a) there aren't many petrol stations outside the towns, and (b) those that do exist tend to be eye-wateringly expensive (both because it does cost more to keep them supplied, but also because they have an effective monopoly in the local market for fuel).

[Andy Hayter]

There is of course another reason why they are eye-wateringly expensive.  They have many of the same fixed costs as an in town station - business rates, pay for workers and owners, power etc.  but with a smaller turnover those costs have to be spread over a smaller number of litres of fuel.

Edited September 26, 2021 by Andy Hayter

[F-UnitMad]

The HGV driver shortage is exacerbated when comes to things like petrol tankers because as well as the HGV licence, you need a Hazardous Goods qualification ("ADR Tankers") as well, because you are effectively driving a bomb around. 

Tanker drivers (& car transporter drivers) are traditionally amongst the highest paid truck drivers around. It says something if there's a shortage in that sector of road transport!!

[spikey]

3 hours ago, Sir TophamHatt said:

Wasn't there a shortage.. a real shortage back in the 90s? Sure my sister had to leave her Ford Sierra down in Devon through lack of petrol.

But I'm sure there was no panic buying... people just filled up when they ran out and if you didn't NEED it, you didn't fill up.

 Maybe that was the case in your neck of the woods, but down here in the allegedly-affluent sarfeast they certainly were panic-buying and being their usual arrogant selves.  And I well remember the fighting (literally) when they all turned up in need of petrol for their chainsaws at the only filling station in town that was somehow up and running the day after the 1987 hurricane.  It was truly pathetic.

[spikey]

3 hours ago, big jim said:

... what’s upsetting me is the lack of breakfast omelette in every branch of Greggs I’ve been into this last week! 

 

382 calories apparently.  And over 40% fat ...