[rf3flyer]

I don't know what the fuel situation really is, and. whether as is suggested in social media that emergency vehicles can't refuel: if either would be true then filling up for flying would not be the zenith of the communal spirit.

Fixed that for you Frank.

[TravellerBob]

Last week the fuel supplies were fine: This week a couple of petrol stations had delivery issues.

The bbc et al. would have you believe that all HGV (with ADR) drivers left the UK last week or caught C19.

It truly is time the media were held to account for the disinformation they deliberately spread.

[Miscellaneous]

A couple of weeks back I drove through the night, 17.00 - 05.00, I concluded the claimed shortfall of 100 000 drivers is fantasy simply because there isn't the physical room for 10s of thousands of additional trucks on the road. As the night wore on the transformation on the roads was like entering another world.

[Sooty25]

I was asked by a friend if I would have available 20 l of mogas for his single seat aeroplane when he visited our local fly-in yesterday. No problem but I imagine the other handful of customers at the filling station watched me thinking "look at that selfish git stock-piling petrol!"

They wouldn't have understood.

I don't know what the fuel situation really is, and. whether as is suggested in social media that emergency vehicles can't refuel: if either would be true then filling up for flying would not be the zenith of the communal spirit.

Pilots aren't changing their usage profile, and their consumption is a fraction of road users. Me not picking up up 20ltrs of premium this week for a pre-planned trip, isn't going to help a diesel fueled ambulance one tiny bit.

What I find concerning is the local ambulance station where all our local ambulances return to daily, hasn't got its own diesel tank!

[Flyin'Dutch']

all our local ambulances return to daily, hasn't got its own diesel tank!

Why?

[stevelup]

It's quite normal. Only big bases have their own fuel supply. It's complex and expensive to bunker your own fuel.

Many emergency service drivers (of all branches) have fuel cards and fill up in the most part at normal fuel stations.

What should have been done (and I accept this is easy to say with hindsight) is for filling stations to have not sold their very last drops to stockpiling motorists, and perhaps introduced the max spend rule sooner.

[Paultheparaglider]

What I find concerning is the local ambulance station where all our local ambulances return to daily, hasn't got its own diesel tank!

Back in my youth, I had a Saturday job as a pump attendant in Bath. The local ambulances had a contract with the garage for fuel, and when we filled them up they signed a sheet for the fuel supplied.

This is probably a lot easier than going through the hassle involved in installing and maintaining tanks at the hospital.

[skydriller]

Ive been looking at this story from afar and cant help but think that it was entirely Media driven.

If you tell people that there is a shortage of something, they will then go out and make sure they have enough of that thing, now buying perhaps when they might not have done, which means that consumption rises when it would not usually have done so, and with modern "just in time" practices, this then creates the very shortage that was reported - and around the circle you go...

[Paultheparaglider]

Ive been looking at this story from afar and cant help but think that it was entirely Media driven.

I think the media were the "useful idiots" that facilitated the plan. The forum rules on politics preclude giving my own thoughts on what is actually behind this.

[johnm]

Something odd is happening as tanker drivers don't just need HGV they need ADR as well and as fuel was easily available until a few hours ago it seems unlikely that many such drivers were unavailable.

Then a couple of filling stations closed awaiting delivery, which isn't unusual, and everyone suddenly got over-excited.

The next few weeks might prove interesting though. On the 1st October the UK stops allowing entry to EU citizens (except the Irish) with just an ID card. It is thought that many drivers and seasonal workers don't have passports as they don't need them to travel around the EU and, up to next Friday, the UK. It is possible that some may have a frontier work permit but otherwise they aren't coming in.

I'm also unsure how the 5000 or 10000 visas being touted in the press will work as I thought you needed a passport to put a visa into.....

[stevelup]

I think the media were the "useful idiots" that facilitated the plan. The forum rules on politics preclude giving my own thoughts on what is actually behind this.

I hear there's a global shortage of tinfoil hats as well.

[Flyin'Dutch']

I think the media were the "useful idiots" that facilitated the plan. The forum rules on politics preclude giving my own thoughts on what is actually behind this.

I hear there's a global shortage of tinfoil hats as well.

There are suggestions that it was invented by a company to sway government policy.

I thought that would have been a convoluted route with a doubtful outcome. Direct funding seems to be so much easier.

[skydriller]

Ive been looking at this story from afar and cant help but think that it was entirely Media driven.

I think the media were the "useful idiots" that facilitated the plan. The forum rules on politics preclude giving my own thoughts on what is actually behind this.

Go ahead - its not stopped anyone before. As I said, Im viewing this from afar so am more than happy to hear forumites views on this.

[Propwash]

Just in case this stupidity at the pumps continues and leads to a real shortage of fuel, resulting in draconian moves by the government, I have dug out the ration book issued to me in 1973 during the petrol crisis created by OPEC. The coupons were never actually used but might come in handy now.



Better safe than sorry.

PW

[Jim Jones]

Still got mine somewhere, might be useful for your petrol dependent folk…..