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Got any petrol or diesel?

Just queued an hour and half to fill the van up at Tesco, the only station I've passed/been to all day with any diesel. I usually fill up three times a week so I hope they sort this shit out soon, saw at least three idiots in front of me putting less than twenty quid in!
 
Unfortunately no petrol or diesel in Erith, Welling or Bexleyheath, Tony. They were queuing round the block on the only petrol station open. I’ve just got slightly under half a tank, so to and from the shops only should last me a couple of weeks by then hopefully the stations should be back to normal ?

Regards,

Martin
 
As you see, it's a beautiful day, the pumps are open and people are having a wonderful time.

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Road Haulage representative on BBC Radio today blaming in part DVSA and DVLA. Said there had been strikes in those places and staff sent home, not yet returned and they were sitting on 40,000+ HGV applications.
 
Monitor Gold 10 said:
I'll ask more detailed questions later on; was a brief text exchange as I was on the way to work! :)
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Cheers. I've done some reading...seems to be shortages of HGV drivers across Europe, although ours is especially acute since we lost 20,000 EU drivers after Brexit. Basically low pay and poor conditions have been driving people out of the haulage business for last few years.
This seems strange when (as Covid demonstrated) our societies depend heavily on road hauliers. Why has this industry not been able to command good pay for it's workers? Lack of organised labour (unions?), being undercut by cheaper rivals? (from where?), a race to the bottom to win contracts? Seems strange that an industry with so much power is operating on such low margins. I read that some logistics companies were working on a 3% margin, which doesn't even sound viable as a business.
 
Tony Lockhart said:
Skoda are off the list.
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Why, Tony? If I wanted an efficient ultra-capacious estate I'd choose the Superb. After all, it's a VW in all but name.

matt j said:
saw at least three idiots in front of me putting less than twenty quid in!
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Why are they idiots? On Friday, I put 20 litres into an empty tank; it'll see me out until this rubbish is sorted. I could've filled the tank (45+ l), and the queues were well formed on Friday, but couldn't see the point in buying more than I'd need. Now, bog rolls; much higher consumption there and that's no tissue of lies !
 
wulbert said:
Cheers. I've done some reading...seems to be shortages of HGV drivers across Europe, although ours is especially acute since we lost 20,000 EU drivers after Brexit. Basically low pay and poor conditions have been driving people out of the haulage business for last few years.
This seems strange when (as Covid demonstrated) our societies depend heavily on road hauliers. Why has this industry not been able to command good pay for it's workers? Lack of organised labour (unions?), being undercut by cheaper rivals? (from where?), a race to the bottom to win contracts? Seems strange that an industry with so much power is operating on such low margins. I read that some logistics companies were working on a 3% margin, which doesn't even sound viable as a business.
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This popped up on my feed just now:
"Europe’s looming truck driver gap undermines UK appeals – POLITICO" https://www-politico-eu.cdn.ampproj...k-driver-shortage-trucker-haulier-brexit-hgv/
 
I've only managed to find fuel at a couple of small BP stations so far - ironic as they were the first to warn of the shortages last week. Really needed it tonight with work trips to Manchester last night, Leeds today, Burton Weds & Derby on Thursday and I only had enough for last night and Leeds on fumes. I got last nights on the A5103 out of Manchester so was lucky but they've had to put a £35 max limit. A sensible move and I don't know why the other stations didn't do this as soon as the panic people hit the forecourts.

A selfish view possibly but I wish those filling up for a non essential nice trip somewhere would think twice about it and save the fuel for those who's jobs depend on it.
 
Perhaps this will encourage people to think whether a car journey is the only option in the future (fat chance!).
Nice little interlude of relative peace here though, there’s a secondary school nearby and our street is chock-a at certain times with mums and dads ferrying their teenagers (poor wee things) to and fro.
 
Mike Reed said:
... On Friday, I put 20 litres into an empty tank; it'll see me out until this rubbish is sorted. I could've filled the tank (45+ l), and the queues were well formed on Friday, but couldn't see the point in buying more than I'd need. ...
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I have about 140 miles of fuel left in my tank. I was wondering how long that might have to last. A rough calculation (below) says we may be about 4.5 days of normal tanker deliveries below typical stock levels at the pumps to make up. It could take a few times that period to get back to normal, provided the extra drivers and tankers can be found, but I hope that's pessimistic - I normally fill up at 100 miles.

[TL;DR]The UK motor vehicle fleet is 38.6 million. Say on average each now has 15 litres more fuel than normal (a guess, and it will actually be the 33% who panicked at +45 litres each), that's 579 million litres total away from normal stock at the pumps. At 36,000 litres per tanker, that takes about 16,000 extra tanker deliveries to make up. Normal UK motor vehicle fleet consumption is 37 million tonnes per year (circa 46 billion litres per year) or circa 3,500 tanker deliveries per day normally. [/TL;DR]
 
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