Any one else panicking

Chae1

Member
Location
Aberdeenshire
Fine up here. Filled up at Asda in Aberdeen on the way home from evening out about midnight. Straight in, unrestricted amounts. Got £100 in. Should last a while.
 

Highland Mule

Member
Livestock Farmer
Fine up here. Filled up at Asda in Aberdeen on the way home from evening out about midnight. Straight in, unrestricted amounts. Got £100 in. Should last a while.
Good to know. I understand Fort William was out of fuel completely for a day or so last week. The big Tesco in Inverness was out yesterday I think and the Asda last weekend. There’s definitely not the same problems as down south, but it’s still real.
 

Chae1

Member
Location
Aberdeenshire
What price per litre?
No idea to be honest. Its my wife's car. I just filled it up with her card cause she was afraid to get out incase she got attacked by a policeman!

There must be some truth in the fuel shortage story. When it was all kicking off last weekend I thought by midweek it would all be over as everyone would have tanks full again and garages will get a chance to catch up. That hasn't really materialised.
 

TheTallGuy

Member
Location
Cambridgeshire
No idea to be honest. Its my wife's car. I just filled it up with her card cause she was afraid to get out incase she got attacked by a policeman!

There must be some truth in the fuel shortage story. When it was all kicking off last weekend I thought by midweek it would all be over as everyone would have tanks full again and garages will get a chance to catch up. That hasn't really materialised.
The problem is that refilling over 8000 filling stations takes time - especially as regular high mileage drivers will be continuing to require fuel. For instance the local big Tesco is situated on an industrial estate & normally in the mornings there is a stream of vans passing through as well as 8 wheelers etc., they get multiple deliveries every week.

There are signs that the situation is improving, but it will probably take another week for the situation to begin to stabilise. The reserve tanker fleet is now moving & the extra 100 military drivers are coming on stream next week.
 

Farmer Roy

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
NSW, Newstralya
Asked chap what they do for fire engines. He said the big stations have there own tanks holding 3 or 4 thousand litres little stations fill up at fuel stations but now are going to bigger stations to fill out of their tanks

Police & Ambulance here have fuel cards & fill up at servos like everyone else.
Rural Fire Service fill up at the local Council Depot, with Council vehicles & heavy plant.
Dunno where the Fire & Rescue ( urban fire brigade ) fill their vehicles, never thought about it before, I assume they have fuel cards like the cops & ambos
 

Poorbuthappy

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Devon
Soooo - are most of your servos now linked to big supermarkets eg Tescos etc ?
Don’t you have standalone servos that are Shell / Mobil / BP etc etc ?
Yes, still lots of independents.
When the figure of 90% forecourts empty was being bandied about last week (including on here), that was just the independents, with supermarkets in a better position. Not sure how motorway services are classed.
 

quattro

Member
Location
scotland
So IF this is a driver shortage wouldn’t it have been building up over a long period of time
or has a lot drivers suddenly left their jobs
bearing in mind our local station seems to always get deliverys on same days
 

HatsOff

Member
Mixed Farmer
So IF this is a driver shortage wouldn’t it have been building up over a long period of time
or has a lot drivers suddenly left their jobs
bearing in mind our local station seems to always get deliverys on same days

Like any crisis its a combination of factors....

Brexit - lots of EU drivers left

Covid - no hgv tests for a while and DVLA slow in processing applications (I know people sneer but they were forced to work from home and all those systems had to be rearranged to allow for that and the backlog takes a long time to clear)

Pay & conditions - drivers continued to leave and be pulled to the better conditions of Amazon et al

Only one or two of the three factors may have just made things harder to manage. All three has caused a proper squeeze.
 

TheTallGuy

Member
Location
Cambridgeshire
So IF this is a driver shortage wouldn’t it have been building up over a long period of time
or has a lot drivers suddenly left their jobs
bearing in mind our local station seems to always get deliverys on same days
It has been building up over time, in reality the "shortage" in tanker drivers is that under normal conditions there's just enough, but with a slew of covid isolations and drivers being tempted away from tanker work with promises of better pay in general haulage etc., the cover became too thin and a few filling stations ran dry. The media reported the dry stations and triggered public panic.

Now, if I was of a cynical mindset I might suggest that the cluster of dry forecourts might well have been engineered and the media tipped off in order to trigger a crisis that the government would respond to by allowing EU drivers back & thus suppress the pay that has been attracting drivers away from certain tanker firms...
 

quattro

Member
Location
scotland
It has been building up over time, in reality the "shortage" in tanker drivers is that under normal conditions there's just enough, but with a slew of covid isolations and drivers being tempted away from tanker work with promises of better pay in general haulage etc., the cover became too thin and a few filling stations ran dry. The media reported the dry stations and triggered public panic.

Now, if I was of a cynical mindset I might suggest that the cluster of dry forecourts might well have been engineered and the media tipped off in order to trigger a crisis that the government would respond to by allowing EU drivers back & thus suppress the pay that has been attracting drivers away from certain tanker firms...
Also government will have made a lot money short term aswell
 

Fendt516profi

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Yorkshire
No idea to be honest. Its my wife's car. I just filled it up with her card cause she was afraid to get out incase she got attacked by a policeman!

There must be some truth in the fuel shortage story. When it was all kicking off last weekend I thought by midweek it would all be over as everyone would have tanks full again and garages will get a chance to catch up. That hasn't really materialised.

station on the m4 nr swansea 1.65 a litre
I was just asking as it was a Asda I filled up at last night, still same price as before the panic. Other stations around are at 1.38-39
IMG_20211003_100351~2.jpg
 

Yorkshire lad

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
YO42
I’m panicking 😱Mrs YL can’t find any currants in the shops to make Christmas puddings and cakes 🎂 😭
How the hell can you have Christmas without cake and puds Boris better do something quick Maybe get the RAF to fly them in
 

MrNoo

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Cirencester
Some of the services on M5 were empty, did see one forecourt that had some here in town but I look in wonder at your £1.32/ltr around here it's £1.43/ltr before the crisis, the consequence of only having 4-5 forecourts in the area.
 

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