I've just witnessed panic buying at St Stephens Tesco. I say panic buying, what I mean is 'busier-than-normal-buying'. Still, it was busy enough for me to turn around and go to the Londis down Chants. Two large Subaru's (is that right? Subari? Subarus's?) at the front of the queue, hogging it. Plus one full flank of pumps being filled right there and then by a massive lorry. At Londis, a small queue, but not much. There were two forms of unleaded. Which one do I choose? I picked one, the car worked coming home. Phew.
The effects for me are dire. I can not risk the journey up on Saturday! It will be worse tomorrow and Saturday as it's payday for many. What fuel is available could be gone quickly. The trouble is that I know that I could get up and back with fuel left in the tank, but round here more than half of the garages are shut and it's next week that is going to be difficult.
Scooby's petrol tanks are smaller than a postage stamp. And after the increase in postal charges probably cost less to fill (sorry Nick!!)
Purely back of a *** packet style calculations, but on the basis that they have to give a week's notice of any strike action: Day 1: Strike announced, people go mental and fill their tanks up. Day 2: People still panic buying and garages running out. Day 3: Garages ****ed because they've no fuel to sell. Days 4 and 5: Deliveries made to garages, everyone who was unable to get fuel in the first panic fills their tanks now and the garages are empty again. People who filled in the first batch of panic buying still have too much in their tanks for it to be worth queueing up for an hour. Days 6 and 7: By the time the first panic buyers need fuel enough to justify the queuing the garages are empty again. Day 8: The strike starts and the original successful panic buyers are now running out of petrol, whilst those who got it midweek have a few days left. Unless they're plannning to do it on Easter weekend (and give up double pay?) I would have thought they'd wait a couple of weeks before announcing a date anyway. If they do it now it's the kid's school holidays so the disruption will be reduced.
I wasn't going for fuel, just for a bit of shopping. I know morrisons does proper **** fuel but people just see the price board and think they are getting a better deal. I had to stick shell v-power in my last motor or it wouldn't run properly.
The govenrment wins again.!!! You have to lauigh at all the stupid people panic buying fuel over the past few days. Ive filled up 3 times this week (one in Portsmouth) WITHOUT any hassle at all. But i filled up as i needed it not because of a ""possible"" tanker drivers strike. My local garage is well stocked up and they have said that they will Limit ALL sales to £40 IF the strike happens, If all garages do that then thats a much better system,, imo.
Boost sales mate. Its almost the end of the current financial year. Interesting that sales over the past week have gone up 172% on what they would normally be. Nothing like Panic Buying is there ?
Bring some empty jerry cans up with you and fill up in Hull. Lots of fuel up here. Shortage what shortage ?
£31M a day in tax, I'm sure that will make a massive dent in the approx trillion pound debt and that the extra £32M a day in sales value for a week will have a massive effect on the GDP for the country over the course of the last 3 months. I like that £40 system, the only problem is with the prices the way they are now won't they be using £45 worth of fuel while they're sat in the queues?
The police are closing a lot of them round my way im glad at times like this that i cant drive but with all the ****ing roadworks plus ques for petrol going out in works car is causing us problems with our service users getting upset and agitated that they cant go do their activitys id like the goverment to try explain to a highly autistic person whyy they cant go out and do things because of cameron been a tit! they will get a nice broken nose for their troubles haha
The bloke in the garage near me reckons Murco aren't going on strike no matter what. I'm driving down to Cornwall in a couple of hours( not happy at missing the game on Saturday). The only concession I'm making is taking the petrol car instead of the diesel as those garages that have run out have run out of diesel apparently and not petrol. You watch I'll run out of petrol near Bristol. I haven't even started packing yet, that's how mental I am.
Government issues a statement saying ""Dont Panic Buy"" knowing full well that many WILL panic buy. The plan worked,, imo. But every little(tax) does help they say. Guess it depends on what CC car you drive. One other point is that £40 worth wont go far in a gas guzzler either. Mrs T car will last almost a month with that amount of fuel in it. Low CC and she only drives in and around Hull.
It's not extra though, it's just brought forward a week, and the amounts are so trivial in the scheme of things that the idea they've done it to manipulate the figures is ridiculous. They'd have been much better if they wanted to do that saying that there was no need to panic about possible food shortages being caused by the tanker drivers not delivering to people like Tesco and Asda's distribution centres, because they were trying to negotiate that supply seperately to the consumer one.
It's hardly his fault that she's a moron who doesn't think it's a bad idea to pour petrol near her cooker while she's got it on. Comment of the day though:
I know everyone's questioning Diane Hills common sense after decantering petrol in front of her oven, but come on all kitchens have an oven, what choice did she have?