More shortages

[aaid]

Just gone past a combined queue of about 3/4 of a mile - it's just past a junction - at my local petrol station.

Had a big grin on my face as I happily cycled by.

[ThistleWhistle]

Is there any rhyme or reason to where the fuel shortages are actually affecting?  I had 60 mile left in the tank and the nearest fuel station is 15-20 miles away in Arbroath so thought I would be in for a massive queue yesterday but there was absolutely nobody else there.     

[phart]

£35 limit on the one in Linlithgow. I normally put £40 when I put petrol in. I hardly ever drive so not something that has affected me.

[TDYER63]

3 hours ago, ThistleWhistle said:

Is there any rhyme or reason to where the fuel shortages are actually affecting?  I had 60 mile left in the tank and the nearest fuel station is 15-20 miles away in Arbroath so thought I would be in for a massive queue yesterday but there was absolutely nobody else there.     

Daughter had to drive to 8 garages on Monday to get one that had fuel. She lives in Glasgow around Charing Cross. She was almost completely out of petrol by then , there were restrictions on the final garage but she got enough to get her by. 

[Orraloon]

7 hours ago, ThistleWhistle said:

If you think this is a fuel crisis… - BBC News

Sufficiently bleak outlook for 2021/22.  

Seems awfully fortuitous timing for the fuel industry that at the moment the world seems to be waking up to the need to ween off of fossil fuels the key conference to solidify support will be set against a backdrop of economies and societies suffering from a shortage of fossil fuels.  

 

 

It's kinda weird that the bbc always seems to think that oil and gas prices "plummeting" is really bad for Scotland, but when prices start to "soar" again it's also really bad for Scotland.

It's almost like they have an agenda or something?

 

[Orraloon]

I've probably driven past a dozen or so petrol stations over the last couple of days. Not a single queue at any of them. Went in for a full tank today, no problem at all. It's just the media hyping folk up into behaving in a manner which isn't logical. It's just seems so easy to manipulate people. 

[ThistleWhistle]

2 hours ago, TDYER63 said:

Daughter had to drive to 8 garages on Monday to get one that had fuel. She lives in Glasgow around Charing Cross. She was almost completely out of petrol by then , there were restrictions on the final garage but she got enough to get her by. 

Think quite a lot of the garages with us have gone for the £30 maximum which seems to have curbed the excesses of the balloon element.  

Mate does  a lot of driving with work down Stoke and he's had a hell of a time down there in various areas of the country - he had to go into a motorway services on fumes that was up at £1.65  a litre but was able to fill up unlimited unsurprisingly at that price.   

[kumnio]

Just filled up, car was at a 1/4 tank which is the normal filling time. No queue at all, drove past a few before getting to Tesco’s and no queues at any of them either. 

[Hertsscot]

In East Yorkshire at present, Hull to be exact. On our way to new home in Scotland.  My wife wanted to fill up, no queues, no problem.

On the other hand reliably informed that in some stations in Bradford staff were checking drivers fuel levels and those who were just topping up were told they weren't going to be served.

[ParisInAKilt]

9 minutes ago, Hertsscot said:

In East Yorkshire at present, Hull to be exact. On our way to new home in Scotland.  My wife wanted to fill up, no queues, no problem.

On the other hand reliably informed that in some stations in Bradford staff were checking drivers fuel levels and those who were just topping up were told they weren't going to be served.

A barman told me the same thing once 

[ParisInAKilt]

Only really seen panic buying once for a brief time during covid, quite easy to get caught up in it when you’re the thing you’re trying to buy is flying off the shelves 

[fringo]

9 minutes ago, ParisInAKilt said:

A barman told me the same thing once 

😄

[killiefaetheferry]

Radio Scotland this morning had a reporter saying all sorts of pumps closed etc in Glasgow but went to Killie and no queues and all pumps open. Ayrshire folk are chill. Weegies are grasping, greedy, selfish fuckers. In my experience.

[killiefaetheferry]

Although my view on this may be influenced by my ex and her pals.

[Orraloon]

1 hour ago, ThistleWhistle said:

Think quite a lot of the garages with us have gone for the £30 maximum which seems to have curbed the excesses of the balloon element.  

  

That is just encouraging folk to fill up when their tank is still half full. It has the effect of making the situation even worse. No logic to that at all. Why can't folk just behave as they normally do?

[Orraloon]

1 hour ago, Hertsscot said:

In East Yorkshire at present, Hull to be exact. On our way to new home in Scotland.  My wife wanted to fill up, no queues, no problem.

On the other hand reliably informed that in some stations in Bradford staff were checking drivers fuel levels and those who were just topping up were told they weren't going to be served.

That is a much more sensible solution than the £30 max idea.

[ThistleWhistle]

14 hours ago, Orraloon said:

That is a much more sensible solution than the £30 max idea.

Unless you’re the poor bastard paid minimum wage to usually sit behind a counter who is now having to take up crowd control duties without any training and be expected to tell frothy mouth zoomers who’ve waited an hour that they can’t have £12.57 worth of fuel to top their tank up.  If it was a nationwide garage or a supermarket wouldn’t be surprised if HR knocked that on the head pronto.    

 

Folk are just scared, thick and exploitable really and the limit might have spurred some to get more petrol but equally easily manipulated to just accept the limit as bet very few bothered to stick their card in a second time to get up to £60 out.  Limiting it though presume the intention would be to cut down on time at the pump and it’s the queues that attract people like flies around excrement as that heightens the perception it’s really running low and they feel compelled to copy everyone else.  If petrol stations run dry too that just heightens the panic buying so limiting it again means it takes more folk to drink it dry – I read at the weekend (sad bastard) that the capacity of the fuel tanks at a petrol station are 22-25k litres per two pumps so limiting it to 20-25 litres  per visit they’ve probably greatly extended the time it would take to empty rather than allowing a free for all so should be able to stay ahead of the curve. 

 

Shows how easy it is to whip folk up into a frenzy  and as much as most would want to deny it if they were involved in the bank run at George Bailey’s bank in ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’ they’d take $212 of his wedding wedge off him without hesitation like the first knob head rather than the $17.50 to help see everyone behind him through.   

[Och Aye]

15 hours ago, killiefaetheferry said:

Radio Scotland this morning had a reporter saying all sorts of pumps closed etc in Glasgow but went to Killie and no queues and all pumps open. Ayrshire folk are chill. Weegies are grasping, greedy, selfish fuckers. In my experience.

The city that voted YES  for Scottish unlike the 'I'm alright Jack' fucks in many other areas. 

[Orraloon]

1 hour ago, ThistleWhistle said:

Unless you’re the poor bastard paid minimum wage to usually sit behind a counter who is now having to take up crowd control duties without any training and be expected to tell frothy mouth zoomers who’ve waited an hour that they can’t have £12.57 worth of fuel to top their tank up.  If it was a nationwide garage or a supermarket wouldn’t be surprised if HR knocked that on the head pronto.    

 

Folk are just scared, thick and exploitable really and the limit might have spurred some to get more petrol but equally easily manipulated to just accept the limit as bet very few bothered to stick their card in a second time to get up to £60 out.  Limiting it though presume the intention would be to cut down on time at the pump and it’s the queues that attract people like flies around excrement as that heightens the perception it’s really running low and they feel compelled to copy everyone else.  If petrol stations run dry too that just heightens the panic buying so limiting it again means it takes more folk to drink it dry – I read at the weekend (sad bastard) that the capacity of the fuel tanks at a petrol station are 22-25k litres per two pumps so limiting it to 20-25 litres  per visit they’ve probably greatly extended the time it would take to empty rather than allowing a free for all so should be able to stay ahead of the curve. 

 

Shows how easy it is to whip folk up into a frenzy  and as much as most would want to deny it if they were involved in the bank run at George Bailey’s bank in ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’ they’d take $212 of his wedding wedge off him without hesitation like the first knob head rather than the $17.50 to help see everyone behind him through.   

If you limit folk to £30 that's about half a tank. That means folk have to fill up twice as often. Queues are twice as long, which adds more fuel to the panic making folk think the situation is even worse than it is. More panic. And then there is all those cars sitting in queues burning more fuel whilst waiting to get fuel. 

But as I said, I haven't seen a single petrol queue so I guess folk in my area are just more sensible than the rest of the country? 

[phart]

1 hour ago, ThistleWhistle said:

Unless you’re the poor bastard paid minimum wage to usually sit behind a counter who is now having to take up crowd control duties without any training and be expected to tell frothy mouth zoomers who’ve waited an hour that they can’t have £12.57 worth of fuel to top their tank up.  If it was a nationwide garage or a supermarket wouldn’t be surprised if HR knocked that on the head pronto.    

 

 

Exactly.  Why put the onus of crowd control on the person who is just meant to activate the pump and take payment, now they're settling disputes, checking fuel levels. 1 person works in the one here. So everytime someone comes in they have to lock the shop walk out check the fuel level. walk back in activate the pump after checking it. If someone is already in the shop they can't leave to go out and check etc.

It generates the most work for the person being paid the least. It's a terrible idea.

Now i'm not sure what £30 does either but it doesn't generate any extra work.

 

[Orraloon]

5 minutes ago, phart said:

Exactly.  Why put the onus of crowd control on the person who is just meant to activate the pump and take payment, now they're settling disputes, checking fuel levels. 1 person works in the one here. So everytime someone comes in they have to lock the shop walk out check the fuel level. walk back in activate the pump after checking it. If someone is already in the shop they can't leave to go out and check etc.

It generates the most work for the person being paid the least. It's a terrible idea.

Now i'm not sure what £30 does either but it doesn't generate any extra work.

 

Aye it's probably unworkable in practice unless they are prepared to hire extra staff. Which they probably won't, as the profit margin on selling petrol isn't that huge. But it makes more sense logically than limiting folk to half a tank at a time, IMO. 

[phart]

3 minutes ago, Orraloon said:

Aye it's probably unworkable in practice unless they are prepared to hire extra staff. Which they probably won't, as the profit margin on selling petrol isn't that huge. But it makes more sense logically than limiting folk to half a tank at a time, IMO. 

Logically we vote out the Tories, increase wages to drivers, encourage the huge companies that drove down labour costs to actually re-invest into the jobs they need via incentives and taining etc.punish a media that creates panic (shouting fire in a theatre) as opposed to having the petrol station attendant check levels or impose an arbitrary rationing system on fuel.

The problems are much more systemic and cannot be solved by micromanaging the forecourt.

[ThistleWhistle]

6 minutes ago, Orraloon said:

Aye it's probably unworkable in practice unless they are prepared to hire extra staff. Which they probably won't, as the profit margin on selling petrol isn't that huge. But it makes more sense logically than limiting folk to half a tank at a time, IMO. 

How 2021 is it I'm verging on going full fucking partisan on the £30 idea

For folk who need to fill up regularly its a pain in the arse - I'm usually 120 mile but am WFH all week so wasn't really on the radar until next week.  Was fairly relaxed from driving up Dundee on Saturday and Arbroath Sunday that everyone hadn't completely lost their fucking minds though. 

What I reckon it does probably protect against is the zoomers who need petrol once a fortnight - month, usually put half a tank in at most and are suddenly filling up like they're all off Cornwall together.  There'll have been a concentration of them initially but they shouldn't need to limit it long term unless the media cause another run again because they'll be all spaced out again in timings for next visit.

Was speaking to someone yesterday who was genuinely pissed off they only got their tank three quarters full - then without breaking stride  admitted they were flying off for a fortnight on holiday and the car would be sat in the drive anyway so hoped things were back to normal on return.    

. 

   

[ThistleWhistle]

13 minutes ago, phart said:

Logically we vote out the Tories, increase wages to drivers, encourage the huge companies that drove down labour costs to actually re-invest into the jobs they need via incentives and taining etc.punish a media that creates panic (shouting fire in a theatre) as opposed to having the petrol station attendant check levels or impose an arbitrary rationing system on fuel.

The problems are much more systemic and cannot be solved by micromanaging the forecourt.

It's supply and demand applied with a sledge-hammer unfortunately - taking 1-2m out of the labour market that there doesn't seem to be a short- medium term solution for is going to take a lot of correcting.    

  

[phart]

2 minutes ago, ThistleWhistle said:

It's supply and demand applied with a sledge-hammer unfortunately - taking 1-2m out of the labour market that there doesn't seem to be a short- medium term solution for is going to take a lot of correcting.    

  

Don't worry the Baroness is working on it