Why are people scrambling for petrol?

Thrugelmir

elsien said:

pogofish said:

This may be an unintentional demonstration of just how little trust people currently have in the government.

I don’t think it’s anything to do with trust in the government or otherwise.
Just human nature and “I’m alright Jack” for those who get there first. Same as in any other shortage now and in years gone by. 

Worse than in the past. People used to tackle problems constructively together. Now it's whinge and whine at the earliest opportunity.  Always somebody elses fault not their own. 

jimbo6977

troffasky said:

jimbo6977 said:

If only journalists did their jobs instead of parroting BP press releases that happen to meet with the media's political leanings, we wouldn't be where we are.

Yes, The Media made people go and queue up for petrol when they didn't really need it, just like they made people vote for brexit when they didn't really want to, etc.

If the The Hated Mainstream Media studiously ignored a decrease in the availability of fuel at petrol stations, are you sure you wouldn't be seeing a conspiracy there instead?

There's a big difference between conspiracy and convenience. 

The media report whatever is convenient to them. 

Massive TNCs like BP pay good salaries to people whose job is to know what the media consider "convenient" and to feed them press releases and interviews to meet that convenience. 

No conspiracy required. 

ontheroad1970

The media could have reported the facts in a much less alarmist way.  The Sun - and tonight Sky News have been irresponsible with the "Is the UK running empty"  

Sea_Shell

There is also probably now a backlog of those people who didn't NEED fuel on Friday/Saturday, but may have otherwise topped up whilst out shopping, who didn't bother (and didn't panic) but who actually DO now need some!

Jenni_D

Sea_Shell said:

There is also probably now a backlog of those people who didn't NEED fuel on Friday/Saturday, but may have otherwise topped up whilst out shopping, who didn't bother (and didn't panic) but who actually DO now need some!

I'm one of them ... I'm not sure how much fuel I have in my car just now but I know I don't have enough for the 300+ miles round trip I need to do next weekend. Hopefully I'll be able to fill up at some point this week.  

molerat

Absolute panic here.  2 cars and the delivery tanker in Asda and 4 cars in Tesco.  Maybe a bit of common sense being used

Grumpy_chap

Apart from the petrol station to panic queue for petrol, given all the lockdown rules and everything, where are all these people actually planning to drive?

I filled up in July (£40) and when we visited the MiL this weekend just gone, the gauge is still showing full tank.

I have no plans to just drive about to create space in the tank so that I can join a queue for more petrol.

Sea_Shell

Grumpy_chap said:

Apart from the petrol station to panic queue for petrol, given all the lockdown rules and everything, where are all these people actually planning to drive?

I filled up in July (£40) and when we visited the MiL this weekend just gone, the gauge is still showing full tank.

I have no plans to just drive about to create space in the tank so that I can join a queue for more petrol.

Lockdown rules???  What lockdown.

We're currently on holiday in the UK, we have enough petrol to get home!

We want to go somewhere again in a couple of weeks time...but won't book until we know we can get fuel.

TripleH

I had to drop my wife off at the train station down the road  just after 5pm (5 miles down the road). We are north of England rural.

The petrol station closest to home was queuing for people to get in but a mile down the road 'in the closest town' the forecourts were busy but no queues.

I put £20 in on the way home as was on an 8th of a tank (E10) and didn't need to queue. When I picked my wife up at 8pm from the train station the 3 fuel stations I passed were all open and had maybe a couple of cars on them.

Jonathan_Powell

Woman fills water bottles with petrol 

 https://news.sky.com/video/share-12420245

This lady didn't even have the decency to pour the water onto the ground.