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Pumps run dry at gas stations in Britain

192 points by underscore_ku 5y ago

pjc50 5y ago
Appears to be _mostly_ a mediagenic phenomenon: the driver shortage caused a few stations to run out, a minister told everyone not to panic buy, so they immediately started panic buying. Like the great toilet paper shortage. The lorry driver shortage inflicted by Brexit is starting to cause problems, though.
- davzie 5y ago
  I honestly think Brexit was only a very small part of this. It's probably also a combination of IR35 making the entire endeavour not worthwhile for UK AND European workers and the government not having enough HGV tests available to bring newly qualified drivers into the workforce. It's a combination of a lot of different things.
  - rjsw 5y ago
    And poor working conditions. Why live in a truck when you can get paid the same to stack shelves in a supermarket and wake up in your own bed.
  - telmo 5y ago
    What a coincidence that something that was claimed for years to be a likely outcome of Brexit happened right in the aftermath of Brexit.... but it turns out that it was mostly unrelated to Brexit. What. A. Coincidence.
    - Sanguinaire 5y ago
      From a purely selfish perspective, the worst outcome of the pandemic so far is that it has served as a distraction and shield for Tories who bungled Brexit and have yet to face any political consequences.
  - twic 5y ago
    Only on a programmers' forum could this all be IR35's fault! (could well be true - but i did laugh out loud)
    - Wildgoose 5y ago
      IR35 doesn't just apply to programmers, it applies to everyone performing individual contract work through a Limited Company, (as originally recommended/insisted upon by the Inland Revenue).
  - p_l 5y ago
    I'm not sure drivers could fall afoul of IR35 anyway. What Brexit did impact it was that it removed EU cabotage and availability of drivers. For example, cargo would arrive on a RoRo ship in Dover, without changing to a british driver. The same driver could take other cargo while in UK (for example having delivered to point A, then taking a load from point A to another british location at point B, and finally taking a load from point B to a continental destination at point C). With Brexit, you suddenly have extra demand (as even with dimnished cargo traffic you need more drivers to service ports as cargo no longer comes with its own drivers) and inability to hire (whether complete firms through cabotage laws or simply due to smaller pool of candidates.)
  - teamonkey 5y ago
    I find that a strange take. There is a HGV driver shortage solely because a lot of drivers have left, due to Brexit. The UK wouldn't need so many extra HGV licences without Brexit, because drivers from the EU would be qualified. The IR35 issues are because people in the UK are used to cheaper labour from mainland Europe, which is no longer available, due to Brexit. That's not to say that the UK government isn't characteristically unprepared, despite months or even years of warnings about these very issues, or that they couldn't have done better to mitigate problems.
- thinkingemote 5y ago
  People on the whole do not know what "panic buying" actually is. I've had multiple conversations which run along the line of "I'm not panic buying, I am rational. I'm only buying this because others are panicking and there wont be any left for me. "
  - fallingknife 5y ago
    Sounds like they do understand panic buying. The issue is that it's completely rational on an individual level. "Panic" buying isn't really a good term for it.
    - kipchak 5y ago
      In the northeast it was typically bread and milk (and also toilet paper) people would stock up on before a big storm often causing shortages. I've seen "French Toast Alert" used but it's a bit too cute to quite capture it. [1]https://www.universalhub.com/french-toast https://www.universalhub.com/french-toast
    - thinkingemote 5y ago
      The issue is that everyone thinks they are rational, there's not a bunch of people panicking and another bunch of people reacting to them. There's just one bunch! So yes the term is wrong but also people don't know what it is, and how they negatively contribute to the cycle. People don't panic when they "panic buy". People don't see themselves as panic buying and they are not reflective
      - fallingknife 5y ago
        They don't just think they are rational, they are rational. When there is a run on the bank, the rational thing to do is join the run, because if you do, you have a chance of getting your money, but if you don't, you have no chance. That is why this behavior is so hard to stop.
      - yifanl 5y ago
        I'm sure game theorists have studied this problem extensively so I could be very wrong and just showing off my ignorance, but I would think that the rational/utilitarian thing in a situation where a large number of actors are acting selfishly is to also act selfishly, assuming you have no effective method of influencing those other actors.
- daxfohl 5y ago
  Minister needs to tell everyone not to panic vaccinate.
- consp 5y ago
  This reminds me of the video from the forklift driver in one of the warehouse where they store the toilet paper here. He was laughing as he drove by hundreds of meters high stacks of toilet paper. If that was any indication at least, it will last for a few days and then return to normal if supply can resume for normal demand (assuming it can for normal demand)
- ta988 5y ago
  For non UK-english aware, a lorry is a truck.
- wp381640 5y ago
  You can have one ass and buy a thousand rolls of toilet paper. You can't have one car and buy a thousand liters of fuel. This is pure supply shock
  - WJW 5y ago
    A sister comment on this article mentions that Halfords have seen jerrycan sales multiply 17-fold compared to last week. Perhaps a thousand liters is a bit much, but you can definitely get more than a carfull.
- thrwyoilarticle 5y ago
  >Like the great toilet paper shortage. I'm drawn to die on this hill every time. The toilet paper shortage made sense. At the start of the first lockdown in the UK, we were told to minimise contact with others. This meant that it made sense for a daily shopper to become a weekly shopper & a weekly shopper to become a biweekly shopper. And if you're shopping less frequently but consuming at the same rate, you'll be buying more volume each time. Shops don't have the means to react to an overnight doubling of demand, so the shelves became empty. To be efficient is to stop being resilient. The world runs on JIT. And if you buck that trend and make things resilient, you can't compete on price. So it's a race to the bottom where all it takes is one off-white swan event for things to fall apart. Does your country have food security? Does your country have energy security? If it does, what would it take for that to stop being true?
  - pasabagi 5y ago
    The annoying thing was, my position on first lockdown was: 1. Covid doesn't generally disable young and healthy people, so there will be no supply shortage. 2. It will be nice to have a reason to go out if I'm cooped up inside all day, and buying groceries is a good one. Then of course, I ended up using napkins as toilet paper for a week, because everybody else thought different.
  - thinkingemote 5y ago
    We were also told to prepare to self isolate a family for 2 weeks. That's a bunch of toilet roll for a normal sized family needed to stock up on. When internet deliveries were restricted to just the vulnerable too. Almost all "panic buying" is calm and rational.
    - OJFord 5y ago
      > When internet deliveries were restricted to just the vulnerable too. That never happened? Perhaps new sign-ups (at the company's discretion)? I had groceries delivered before the pandemic and continued throughout, only affect was that for a few months slots would be booked up weeks in advance of normal, so had to plan ahead more.
- yabatopia 5y ago
  "Appears to be _mostly_ a mediagenic phenomenon: the driver shortage caused a few stations to run out". I believe it's more serious than just a mediagenic phenomenon, with only a few stations affected. From The Guardian: "Ministers are considering a range of options after BP said a third of its petrol stations had run out of the main two grades of fuel, while the Petrol Retailers Association (PRA), which represents almost 5,500 independent outlets, said 50% to 90% of its members had reported running out. It predicted the rest would soon follow." (https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/sep/27/eu-lorry-drivers-not-help-britain-ease-fuel-crisis-union https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/sep/27/eu-lorry-dr...)
  - makomk 5y ago
    It's still a mediagenic phenomenon. The driver shortage itself only caused a handful of petrol stations to run out - it was panic buying due to frenzied news headlines about petrol shortages that caused all the rest to run out of fuel.
- hardlianotion 5y ago
  A larger contribution to the driver shortage was the change in self employment status caused by IR35 off payroll legislation. https://driverrequire.co.uk/ir35 https://driverrequire.co.uk/ir35 https://www.contractoruk.com/news/0015112ir35_reform_fuelling_100000_hgv_driver_shortage.html https://www.contractoruk.com/news/0015112ir35_reform_fuellin... Lorry driver shortage is a fairly common phenom in Europe atm.
rbanffy 5y ago
It’s incredibly sad it’s come to this, but it’s an entirely self inflicted pain. Voters were lied to and this is the result.
- w_t_payne 5y ago
  Entirely deliberate Bullingdon-style class warfare.
- callamdelaney 5y ago
  I'm sure we'll all shed a tear because 'brenda #fbpeu' had to queue up for some petrol she didn't need.
  - rbanffy 5y ago
    The reason more tears haven't been shed is probably because the consequences are so terrible nobody on either side had the will to enforce the original terms and timelines and Tories will try to kick this can down the road for as long as politically possible, perhaps much longer.
qzw 5y ago
> "The free movement of labour is part of the European Union, and we tried very hard to convince the British not to leave the Union," said Olaf Scholz, the Social Democrat candidate to succeed Angela Merkel as German chancellor. "They decided differently. I hope they will manage the problems coming from that," Scholz said. Man, I can smell the schadenfreude from all the way over here.
- brightball 5y ago
  You definitely get the impression that the other EU members intend to punish the UK for leaving.
  - Swizec 5y ago
    Or just treat them as they do any other non-EU country? The special deals and preferential treatment come with being in the EU. When you leave, they stop. Fair’s fair.
    - timellis-smith 5y ago
      Not sure. "A fifth of all EU border checks are now happening in Northern Ireland, the government has said." https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/brexit/unsustainable-level-of-eu-checks-happening-in-ni-40404848.html https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/brexit/unsustainable... There is a distinct possibility that the EU is being vindictive
      - dhosek 5y ago
        Or there is the distinct possibility that this was a heavily-traversed border pre-Brexit and with Brexit it now requires a lot of border checks.
        timellis-smith 5y ago
        I'm not going to argue whether the actual statement is true or not: Many people don't trust the government at the best of times but if it is true, I seriously doubt whether it constitutes 1/5 of all EU trade (assuming that border checks are in proportion to trade).
simonswords82 5y ago
Not suggesting that there are not other factors (Brexit, Covid etc) but the media have to shoulder the "panic" element of this. E.g. stop publishing photos of queueing cars and cordoned off pumps and report purely on the statistics of the matter. Too many media outlets are entirely hell bent on getting clicks without a care for the furore they induce in the general public as a result. Social media does of course amplify the messages and images the media put out, so they compound the issue.
- mkohlmyr 5y ago
  It's not unlike the panic buying at the start of the pandemic. The media is driving this hysteria because a) it fits their narrative around brexit, and b) fear & outrage sells.
  - yifanl 5y ago
    The media may have made the problem appear a little faster, but they can't be the actual cause of the shortage, the supply strain existed well before the first headline was ever pushed.
    - simonswords82 5y ago
      Yes the strain was there but if you publish front page news every day that the pumps are "running dry" then you're going to cause a spike in demand.
  - JKCalhoun 5y ago
    > fear & outrage sells Or put another way, fear & outrage buy.
  - louthy 5y ago
    > it fits their narrative around brexit What narrative around Brexit? I see a lack of narrative around Brexit. We are always told about “supply chain issues” with barely any reflection on the cause. Yes, other nations in Europe have supply chain issues, but they’re not seeing the problems we’re seeing in the uk. This is a Brexit issue, but no major media outfit seems to be holding the government (who are the architects of the exit and the deal) accountable. Especially the serial liar at the top.
Bud 5y ago
This is all actually due to the initial phases of the inevitable collapse of the Galactic Empire, as foreseen by Hari Seldon.
- sgt 5y ago
  How can we counteract this. Should perhaps one or two settlements be created at the opposite ends of the Earth be established? In order to make ready for the new empire?
  - bayesian_horse 5y ago
    One in Cornwall and one on the Orkneys should be enough. It's more of a local British problem...
  - _1tan 5y ago
    Any blueprints for these settlements we can use?
  - ben_w 5y ago
    Land’s End and Marshall Meadows Bay should suffice. Although at this rate, Northumberland will be accidentally seceded to a newly independent Scotland, and the entity of Cornwall will become part of an independent Wales.
  - binbag 5y ago
    The British did this a while back when their Empire still looked strong - the Foundation was North America. The silent sleeper cell second foundation is probably New Zealand. Unfortunately, Boris Johnson a.k.a the Mule came along.
TomGullen 5y ago
Unlike the toilet paper panic buying there is limited capacity people can buy, so I would expect this to naturally end short term when people don’t have capacity to buy any more. What concerns me is government planning to address this looks a lot more forward looking than a few days/a week, so I can see it getting worse. Interesting how the government say it’s not a shortage, if the refineries were running low you wouldn’t say there’s no shortage as there’s plenty of crude lying under the sea bed. If I can’t buy petrol at the pump then for all intents and purposes it is a shortage. I feel like there’s a chance here there is a systemic issue and “panic buyers” are a convenient scape goat as I think most people are just filling up to the top instead of half way, or going a little earlier than they would otherwise. No actors doing this would class themselves as panic buyers, but there’s a lot of vitriol and anger towards the concept of a panic buyer which is a convenient diversion away from other causes.
- HPsquared 5y ago
  "Nothing to see here, please disperse"
  - jack_riminton 5y ago
    Refusal to send the army in reeks of BoJo not making a decision until the crisis couldn't get any worse and so he's forced to
- bayesian_horse 5y ago
  I think it was unclear as to why there is no gas. Is it because there are no drivers to drive the gas to the stations or because the general energy supply for GB currently sucks?
  - jack_riminton 5y ago
    The official line is that there is a lack of truck drivers, which is mostly true because Brexit has prevented a lot of the foreign drivers from working
sgt 5y ago
TBH I still think Brexit is a good choice for Britain. The EU is a terribly inefficient and hopeless organization (but perhaps I am a bit biased, I've always been opposed to the EU because it's far too heavy weight). Of course, they will suffer economically for a while, but that was part of the game with Brexit. The voters however - were slightly lied to regarding the immediate downsides. It's probably important to keep the big picture in mind.
- rich_sasha 5y ago
  > The EU is a terribly inefficient and hopeless organization Compared to what? Efficiency always scaled poorly with size. For what it's worth, bureaucracies of US Federal government, not to mention those of China, India, Russia etc. are far worse, it seems. It's not about the EU's throughput of things, but things it enables. Things like efficient allocation of resources via a single economic area, for example.
- ethnt 5y ago
  It absolutely was not the right choice for the UK (not just Britain, don't forget about Northern Ireland). The EU has definitely shown itself to be quick when it needs to be, and in general has improved life for the average person. There are nothing but downsides in the immediate and long-term future for the UK without the EU — these economic consequences are not easily solvable, and the Tories have not shown themselves capable of actually solving these problems. The UK had a very privileged place in the EU before, and was able to punch above their weight. When they inevitably rejoin they certainly won't be able to hold that special status again.
- joeberon 5y ago
  As a Brit, I think "slightly lied to" is a huge under-exaggeration. Literally everyone I spoke to who voted for Brexit did so entirely on the lies, for example the NHS money thing, specific claims about removing "foreigners", and promises of rebuilding of British-only enterprises.
  - davzie 5y ago
    I'm sorry but you can't know that. The vast majority of people had probably made their decision before the messaging kicked in. Also you can claim the same the other way. The only reason people voted to remain is because of the scare of no drinking water, no medicines, fear of an instant market crash etc. Both sides can and were manipulated to some extent by false messaging that never came to be, but certainly not everyone voted the way they did as a result of that messaging.
mschuster91 5y ago
Well... looks like the UK are the next in line to discover that paying people in essential industries shit wages leads to said shit outcomes. Over many decades, employees in easy-to-learn and especially easy-to-outsource jobs were treated as disposable cogs, and now after Corona and other crisis crunches the whole house of cards comes crushing down.
- bayesian_horse 5y ago
  They would still be in the UK doing their shit jobs for shit wages, if they had a better visa situation...
  - callamdelaney 5y ago
    There is a massive shortage of HGV drivers across Europe and has been for years. 'It should be noted first and foremost that Britain’s driver shortage is not a new phenomenon. Even in the heady days before Covid or Brexit, the UK was already lacking around 76,000 drivers, according to Logistics UK.'[1] [1] https://www.thegrocer.co.uk/supply-chain/the-real-causes-of-the-hgv-driver-shortage-and-why-we-cant-blame-it-all-on-brexit/659841.article https://www.thegrocer.co.uk/supply-chain/the-real-causes-of-...
- TheGigaChad 5y ago
  That is BECAUSE they are DISPOSABLE COGS. We got to where are we because the idiots in charge decided to CODDLE THEM.
- bellyfullofbac 5y ago
  Well, aren't we all in the West (if I may assume where you live) guilty of that? 55 inch TVs are $500 nowadays, mangoes flown from South America are less than $2 in my local supermarket, we like to fly to Thailand because vacationing is "dirt cheap" there...
jjgreen 5y ago
The Mash nailed this last week https://www.thedailymash.co.uk/politics/britain-facing-long-hard-winter-of-it-not-being-brexits-fault-20210923212350 https://www.thedailymash.co.uk/politics/britain-facing-long-...
- beardyw 5y ago
  And NewsThump today: Government unveils ‘guaranteed to work’ petrol track & trace app to beat fuel crisis https://newsthump.com/2021/09/27/government-unveils-guaranteed-to-work-petrol-track-trace-app-to-beat-fuel-crisis/ https://newsthump.com/2021/09/27/government-unveils-guarante... "You put in your location and details, and then next Tuesday you’ll get an appointment to get precisely three litres of fuel from a pump in Sunderland"
HPsquared 5y ago
People can only fill their tank, so it's self-limiting.
- joeberon 5y ago
  What do you mean by that? They can fill jerry cans or siphon out fuel at home
  - HPsquared 5y ago
    More generally, people have limited capacity by how many fuel containers they own. I don't think there is a massive supply of unused jerry cans anywhere, and and in any case it would take several cans to equal a single car tank.
    - brianwawok 5y ago
      Have a buddy with multiple 50 gallon "drums" he fills up with gas anytime he even suspects that gas price is going to go up. Sounds like a lot of work to maybe save $50, but hey... mostly fun and games (unless you barn catches fire).
      - HPsquared 5y ago
        Of course some buyers are bigger than others but even your friend (unusual as he is) only has so many drums.
      - ben_w 5y ago
        Mm. A Facebook friend in the UK just reported a petrol tout to the police for storing more than 15 litres without a licence.
        bluGill 5y ago
        Depends on where you live. Farmers in the US typically have around 8000 liters petro on their farm in various grades. They have a contract with a local company to keep those tanks full of whatever the correct fuel for the current season is. When it is a long way to town and many vehicles never go to town having your own private fuel station starts to make sense.
JimmyAxod 5y ago
The media need to be held accountable here. Everyone in the industry is telling anyone who will listen that there is no shortage of petrol (gas), and there is no shortage of drivers. Yet the media are still whipping the story because it’s selling papers/views/clicks etc for them. This is yelling “fire” in a crowded theatre, when there is no fire. There should be prosecutions for this sort of behaviour. Lives will be put at risk or lost because of this. And seriously, the public need to stop listening and believing the media. They have no morals, and they certainly do not care about truth. To those downvoting: If there is still a “crisis” next week, I will eat my hat. There is no crisis. You know this. The media will have moved onto the next “crisis” they can manufacture. From the article: > Drivers queued for hours to fill their cars at petrol stations that were still selling fuel, albeit often rationed. There were also calls for National Health Service (NHS) workers to be given priority to keep hospitals open That is just ridiculous. It’s so far removed from reality. Who queued for hours? Who in their right mind is suggesting hospitals might close? It’s just reckless reporting designed to make panic buying worse. And trying to link it to our decision to leave the EU years ago, is just utter desperation. You all know this is BS, and that in a couple of days, once the story has peaked, and the media has moved onto something else, the “crisis” will be over.
- prof-dr-ir 5y ago
  Your claim that "there is no shortage of drivers" according to "everyone in the industry" is incorrect. From [0]: BP blamed the restrictions on “delays in the supply change which has been impact by the industry-wide driver shortages across the UK”. Tesco said it had “experienced temporary supply issues caused by driver absences in recent days”, adding: “We expect the situation to improve in the next week and apologise to our customers for any inconvenience caused.” [0] https://inews.co.uk/news/hgv-driver-shortage-bp-to-start-rationing-petrol-and-diesel-due-to-uk-lorry-crisis-1214393 https://inews.co.uk/news/hgv-driver-shortage-bp-to-start-rat...
  - JimmyAxod 5y ago
    I’d suggest you should listen to what the drivers, refinery, and actual garage staff say. I think you’ll get much closer to the truth. Tesco aren’t rationing petrol due to the “driver crisis”. They are rationing it due to the media telling people to go and panic buy petrol. As you can see in the article, the only one with driver issues is BP. Other petrol stations have plenty. Yet they are all affected because of the media whipping consumers into panic. And as you can see in the article, BP reports that “between 50 and 100 stations affected”. Out of 1200!!! That’s not even newsworthy, yet the media are whipping and whipping. Can you see the issue with the following… > Petrol stations operated by Morrisons, The Co-op, Sainsbury’s and Asda also said they had no current issues with their fuel supplies, the BBC reported. > LARGE FONT ALL BOLD! ‘Rapidly worsening crisis’ > Jim McMahon, Shadow Transport Secretary, described the lorry driver shortage as a “rapidly worsening crisis” that required urgent Government attention. So the petrol stations say it’s all fine, and the article shouts “RAPIDLY WORSENING CRISIS”. This, as I say, is disgraceful reporting, and is shouting “fire” in a crowded theatre where there is no fire.
mise_en_place 5y ago
The headline title is misleading, to say the least. It should read “Pumps run dry at some gas stations in Britain”. This is normal and to be expected due to record high crude oil prices and logistics/shipping prices.
traveler01 5y ago
"British ministers have insisted that Brexit is nothing to do with the current trucker shortage." BUT... "The government on Sunday announced a plan to issue temporary visas for 5,000 foreign truck drivers." The politicians think that everyone's dumb. If you need to pass temporary visas, a thing that truckers didn't needed when UK was in the EU, clearly Brexit caused this issue.
- kwhitefoot 5y ago
  Brexit didn't cause it, it just made it more obvious. The problem is not a shortage of drivers, it is the poor pay and conditions.
- tim333 5y ago
  There were multiple factors of which brexit was maybe number two. People stopping working due to covid was no 1. Also the diver license folk knocking off.
mcot2 5y ago
Solar + Battery + EV - No need for a pump, just sayin…
- addingnumbers 5y ago
  How much panel surface would you need to drive an EV, say, 100 miles a week?
  - jillesvangurp 5y ago
    A Tesla does about 4 miles per kw, give or take. So 100 miles would use about 25 KWH. Typical solar panel setups for domestic usage are around 3-4 KW. So depending on the season, you could get to 25KWH in a single day in the summer and you might struggle to get there in a week in the winter. All depends on you latitude, cloud coverage, etc. If you are in the north of Scottland, probably not a great plan in the winter but fantastic yields in the summer due to the long days.
  - vel0city 5y ago
    This will need to make some assumptions based on how many good hours of solar generation you get. This will vary quite a bit based on latitude and season. Assuming you get ~6 hours of good generation a day on average, charging 7 days a week means you'll get 42 hours of good solar power output. Depending on your EV car, your driving habits, etc you might get ~4mi/kWh. So for 100mi, you're looking at 25kWh to get your 100mi weekly range. So over the course of 42 weekly hours, you'll need to come up with 25kWh. 25,000Wh / 42 hours converts to ~595.24W. So you'll want about 600W of generation capacity. Modern PV cells usually get ~150W per square meter, so 600 W / 150 W/m^2 = 4 m^2. You'll probably want to add a bit of additional overhead to deal with the weeks where you don't get quite a much sun and also with some of the losses in the system. As an additional note, this is only really thinking about the "peak" hours in the system. You'll get a few more hours a day charging at a lot of latitudes. This can also vary a decent bit based on the layout of your solar array.
- sgt101 5y ago
  I've got a tesla and a plug, there's no need for a pump with that setup either...
throwawaymanbot 5y ago
Damn that labor govt.
hardlianotion 5y ago
They are petrol stations.
binbag 5y ago
It's OK everyone, the government says there is no shortage, so there isn't one. That's how it works in the New Sovereign UK.
plutonorm 5y ago
Seems strange that this has nothing at all to do with the rapidly rising prices of petrol in the UK. Russia has been reducing the flow of petrol into Europe due to conflict over a new pipeline. The UK has a had a terrible windy season, meaning more demand for fossil fuels. And economic recovery after the pandemic, all these things have pushed prices really high. This shortage of drivers thing is likely a convenient side story to distract from the fundamental issue of high prices. https://www.theguardian.com/money/2021/aug/04/uk-petrol-prices-at-highest-level-since-2013-with-more-rises-expected https://www.theguardian.com/money/2021/aug/04/uk-petrol-pric...
- WJW 5y ago
  How would a windy season lead to more demand for fossil fuels? You'd think all the wind turbines going full swing would mean less electricity has to be generated with non-renewable means, thereby reducing demand for fossil fuels.
  - nicktelford 5y ago
    By "terrible windy season", he means that a season that is usually expected to be very windy has instead been quite still.
  - regularfry 5y ago
    A terrible windy season is one in which there is less wind. This would be different to a terribly windy season, in which there is too much. We've just had a low-wind summer, increasing the demand for gas.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
gpderetta 5y ago
Well it didn't take long after the apocalypse to go full Mad Max Hopefully it is just another toilet roll craze.
newbamboo 5y ago
Diesel too?
- tim333 5y ago
  Yup. Apparently there's been a 20x increase in people putting the wrong fuel in their vehicle - diesel in petrol or visa versa which is rather dumb.
animal531 5y ago
Here is South Africa during our last Covid lockdown there were also a shortage going on. But then the government banned the selling of petrol to people who were bringing random containers, which apparently made up a big portion of the total sales.

192 points by underscore_ku 5y ago

Appears to be _mostly_ a mediagenic phenomenon: the driver shortage caused a few stations to run out, a minister told everyone not to panic buy, so they immediately started panic buying. Like the great toilet paper shortage. The lorry driver shortage inflicted by Brexit is starting to cause problems, though.

davzie 5y ago
I honestly think Brexit was only a very small part of this. It's probably also a combination of IR35 making the entire endeavour not worthwhile for UK AND European workers and the government not having enough HGV tests available to bring newly qualified drivers into the workforce. It's a combination of a lot of different things.
- rjsw 5y ago
  And poor working conditions. Why live in a truck when you can get paid the same to stack shelves in a supermarket and wake up in your own bed.
- telmo 5y ago
  What a coincidence that something that was claimed for years to be a likely outcome of Brexit happened right in the aftermath of Brexit.... but it turns out that it was mostly unrelated to Brexit. What. A. Coincidence.
  - Sanguinaire 5y ago
    From a purely selfish perspective, the worst outcome of the pandemic so far is that it has served as a distraction and shield for Tories who bungled Brexit and have yet to face any political consequences.
- twic 5y ago
  Only on a programmers' forum could this all be IR35's fault! (could well be true - but i did laugh out loud)
  - Wildgoose 5y ago
    IR35 doesn't just apply to programmers, it applies to everyone performing individual contract work through a Limited Company, (as originally recommended/insisted upon by the Inland Revenue).
- p_l 5y ago
  I'm not sure drivers could fall afoul of IR35 anyway. What Brexit did impact it was that it removed EU cabotage and availability of drivers. For example, cargo would arrive on a RoRo ship in Dover, without changing to a british driver. The same driver could take other cargo while in UK (for example having delivered to point A, then taking a load from point A to another british location at point B, and finally taking a load from point B to a continental destination at point C). With Brexit, you suddenly have extra demand (as even with dimnished cargo traffic you need more drivers to service ports as cargo no longer comes with its own drivers) and inability to hire (whether complete firms through cabotage laws or simply due to smaller pool of candidates.)
- teamonkey 5y ago
  I find that a strange take. There is a HGV driver shortage solely because a lot of drivers have left, due to Brexit. The UK wouldn't need so many extra HGV licences without Brexit, because drivers from the EU would be qualified. The IR35 issues are because people in the UK are used to cheaper labour from mainland Europe, which is no longer available, due to Brexit. That's not to say that the UK government isn't characteristically unprepared, despite months or even years of warnings about these very issues, or that they couldn't have done better to mitigate problems.
thinkingemote 5y ago
People on the whole do not know what "panic buying" actually is. I've had multiple conversations which run along the line of "I'm not panic buying, I am rational. I'm only buying this because others are panicking and there wont be any left for me. "
- fallingknife 5y ago
  Sounds like they do understand panic buying. The issue is that it's completely rational on an individual level. "Panic" buying isn't really a good term for it.
  - kipchak 5y ago
    In the northeast it was typically bread and milk (and also toilet paper) people would stock up on before a big storm often causing shortages. I've seen "French Toast Alert" used but it's a bit too cute to quite capture it. [1]https://www.universalhub.com/french-toast https://www.universalhub.com/french-toast
  - thinkingemote 5y ago
    The issue is that everyone thinks they are rational, there's not a bunch of people panicking and another bunch of people reacting to them. There's just one bunch! So yes the term is wrong but also people don't know what it is, and how they negatively contribute to the cycle. People don't panic when they "panic buy". People don't see themselves as panic buying and they are not reflective
    - fallingknife 5y ago
      They don't just think they are rational, they are rational. When there is a run on the bank, the rational thing to do is join the run, because if you do, you have a chance of getting your money, but if you don't, you have no chance. That is why this behavior is so hard to stop.
    - yifanl 5y ago
      I'm sure game theorists have studied this problem extensively so I could be very wrong and just showing off my ignorance, but I would think that the rational/utilitarian thing in a situation where a large number of actors are acting selfishly is to also act selfishly, assuming you have no effective method of influencing those other actors.
daxfohl 5y ago
Minister needs to tell everyone not to panic vaccinate.
consp 5y ago
This reminds me of the video from the forklift driver in one of the warehouse where they store the toilet paper here. He was laughing as he drove by hundreds of meters high stacks of toilet paper. If that was any indication at least, it will last for a few days and then return to normal if supply can resume for normal demand (assuming it can for normal demand)
ta988 5y ago
For non UK-english aware, a lorry is a truck.
wp381640 5y ago
You can have one ass and buy a thousand rolls of toilet paper. You can't have one car and buy a thousand liters of fuel. This is pure supply shock
- WJW 5y ago
  A sister comment on this article mentions that Halfords have seen jerrycan sales multiply 17-fold compared to last week. Perhaps a thousand liters is a bit much, but you can definitely get more than a carfull.
thrwyoilarticle 5y ago
>Like the great toilet paper shortage. I'm drawn to die on this hill every time. The toilet paper shortage made sense. At the start of the first lockdown in the UK, we were told to minimise contact with others. This meant that it made sense for a daily shopper to become a weekly shopper & a weekly shopper to become a biweekly shopper. And if you're shopping less frequently but consuming at the same rate, you'll be buying more volume each time. Shops don't have the means to react to an overnight doubling of demand, so the shelves became empty. To be efficient is to stop being resilient. The world runs on JIT. And if you buck that trend and make things resilient, you can't compete on price. So it's a race to the bottom where all it takes is one off-white swan event for things to fall apart. Does your country have food security? Does your country have energy security? If it does, what would it take for that to stop being true?
- pasabagi 5y ago
  The annoying thing was, my position on first lockdown was: 1. Covid doesn't generally disable young and healthy people, so there will be no supply shortage. 2. It will be nice to have a reason to go out if I'm cooped up inside all day, and buying groceries is a good one. Then of course, I ended up using napkins as toilet paper for a week, because everybody else thought different.
- thinkingemote 5y ago
  We were also told to prepare to self isolate a family for 2 weeks. That's a bunch of toilet roll for a normal sized family needed to stock up on. When internet deliveries were restricted to just the vulnerable too. Almost all "panic buying" is calm and rational.
  - OJFord 5y ago
    > When internet deliveries were restricted to just the vulnerable too. That never happened? Perhaps new sign-ups (at the company's discretion)? I had groceries delivered before the pandemic and continued throughout, only affect was that for a few months slots would be booked up weeks in advance of normal, so had to plan ahead more.
yabatopia 5y ago
"Appears to be _mostly_ a mediagenic phenomenon: the driver shortage caused a few stations to run out". I believe it's more serious than just a mediagenic phenomenon, with only a few stations affected. From The Guardian: "Ministers are considering a range of options after BP said a third of its petrol stations had run out of the main two grades of fuel, while the Petrol Retailers Association (PRA), which represents almost 5,500 independent outlets, said 50% to 90% of its members had reported running out. It predicted the rest would soon follow." (https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/sep/27/eu-lorry-drivers-not-help-britain-ease-fuel-crisis-union https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/sep/27/eu-lorry-dr...)
- makomk 5y ago
  It's still a mediagenic phenomenon. The driver shortage itself only caused a handful of petrol stations to run out - it was panic buying due to frenzied news headlines about petrol shortages that caused all the rest to run out of fuel.
hardlianotion 5y ago
A larger contribution to the driver shortage was the change in self employment status caused by IR35 off payroll legislation. https://driverrequire.co.uk/ir35 https://driverrequire.co.uk/ir35 https://www.contractoruk.com/news/0015112ir35_reform_fuelling_100000_hgv_driver_shortage.html https://www.contractoruk.com/news/0015112ir35_reform_fuellin... Lorry driver shortage is a fairly common phenom in Europe atm.

rbanffy 5y ago

It’s incredibly sad it’s come to this, but it’s an entirely self inflicted pain. Voters were lied to and this is the result.

w_t_payne 5y ago
Entirely deliberate Bullingdon-style class warfare.
callamdelaney 5y ago
I'm sure we'll all shed a tear because 'brenda #fbpeu' had to queue up for some petrol she didn't need.
- rbanffy 5y ago
  The reason more tears haven't been shed is probably because the consequences are so terrible nobody on either side had the will to enforce the original terms and timelines and Tories will try to kick this can down the road for as long as politically possible, perhaps much longer.

qzw 5y ago

> "The free movement of labour is part of the European Union, and we tried very hard to convince the British not to leave the Union," said Olaf Scholz, the Social Democrat candidate to succeed Angela Merkel as German chancellor. "They decided differently. I hope they will manage the problems coming from that," Scholz said. Man, I can smell the schadenfreude from all the way over here.

brightball 5y ago
You definitely get the impression that the other EU members intend to punish the UK for leaving.
- Swizec 5y ago
  Or just treat them as they do any other non-EU country? The special deals and preferential treatment come with being in the EU. When you leave, they stop. Fair’s fair.
  - timellis-smith 5y ago
    Not sure. "A fifth of all EU border checks are now happening in Northern Ireland, the government has said." https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/brexit/unsustainable-level-of-eu-checks-happening-in-ni-40404848.html https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/brexit/unsustainable... There is a distinct possibility that the EU is being vindictive
    - dhosek 5y ago
      Or there is the distinct possibility that this was a heavily-traversed border pre-Brexit and with Brexit it now requires a lot of border checks.
      - timellis-smith 5y ago
        I'm not going to argue whether the actual statement is true or not: Many people don't trust the government at the best of times but if it is true, I seriously doubt whether it constitutes 1/5 of all EU trade (assuming that border checks are in proportion to trade).

simonswords82 5y ago

Not suggesting that there are not other factors (Brexit, Covid etc) but the media have to shoulder the "panic" element of this. E.g. stop publishing photos of queueing cars and cordoned off pumps and report purely on the statistics of the matter. Too many media outlets are entirely hell bent on getting clicks without a care for the furore they induce in the general public as a result. Social media does of course amplify the messages and images the media put out, so they compound the issue.

mkohlmyr 5y ago
It's not unlike the panic buying at the start of the pandemic. The media is driving this hysteria because a) it fits their narrative around brexit, and b) fear & outrage sells.
- yifanl 5y ago
  The media may have made the problem appear a little faster, but they can't be the actual cause of the shortage, the supply strain existed well before the first headline was ever pushed.
  - simonswords82 5y ago
    Yes the strain was there but if you publish front page news every day that the pumps are "running dry" then you're going to cause a spike in demand.
- JKCalhoun 5y ago
  > fear & outrage sells Or put another way, fear & outrage buy.
- louthy 5y ago
  > it fits their narrative around brexit What narrative around Brexit? I see a lack of narrative around Brexit. We are always told about “supply chain issues” with barely any reflection on the cause. Yes, other nations in Europe have supply chain issues, but they’re not seeing the problems we’re seeing in the uk. This is a Brexit issue, but no major media outfit seems to be holding the government (who are the architects of the exit and the deal) accountable. Especially the serial liar at the top.

Bud 5y ago

This is all actually due to the initial phases of the inevitable collapse of the Galactic Empire, as foreseen by Hari Seldon.

sgt 5y ago
How can we counteract this. Should perhaps one or two settlements be created at the opposite ends of the Earth be established? In order to make ready for the new empire?
- bayesian_horse 5y ago
  One in Cornwall and one on the Orkneys should be enough. It's more of a local British problem...
- _1tan 5y ago
  Any blueprints for these settlements we can use?
- ben_w 5y ago
  Land’s End and Marshall Meadows Bay should suffice. Although at this rate, Northumberland will be accidentally seceded to a newly independent Scotland, and the entity of Cornwall will become part of an independent Wales.
- binbag 5y ago
  The British did this a while back when their Empire still looked strong - the Foundation was North America. The silent sleeper cell second foundation is probably New Zealand. Unfortunately, Boris Johnson a.k.a the Mule came along.

TomGullen 5y ago

Unlike the toilet paper panic buying there is limited capacity people can buy, so I would expect this to naturally end short term when people don’t have capacity to buy any more. What concerns me is government planning to address this looks a lot more forward looking than a few days/a week, so I can see it getting worse. Interesting how the government say it’s not a shortage, if the refineries were running low you wouldn’t say there’s no shortage as there’s plenty of crude lying under the sea bed. If I can’t buy petrol at the pump then for all intents and purposes it is a shortage. I feel like there’s a chance here there is a systemic issue and “panic buyers” are a convenient scape goat as I think most people are just filling up to the top instead of half way, or going a little earlier than they would otherwise. No actors doing this would class themselves as panic buyers, but there’s a lot of vitriol and anger towards the concept of a panic buyer which is a convenient diversion away from other causes.

HPsquared 5y ago
"Nothing to see here, please disperse"
- jack_riminton 5y ago
  Refusal to send the army in reeks of BoJo not making a decision until the crisis couldn't get any worse and so he's forced to
bayesian_horse 5y ago
I think it was unclear as to why there is no gas. Is it because there are no drivers to drive the gas to the stations or because the general energy supply for GB currently sucks?
- jack_riminton 5y ago
  The official line is that there is a lack of truck drivers, which is mostly true because Brexit has prevented a lot of the foreign drivers from working

sgt 5y ago

TBH I still think Brexit is a good choice for Britain. The EU is a terribly inefficient and hopeless organization (but perhaps I am a bit biased, I've always been opposed to the EU because it's far too heavy weight). Of course, they will suffer economically for a while, but that was part of the game with Brexit. The voters however - were slightly lied to regarding the immediate downsides. It's probably important to keep the big picture in mind.

rich_sasha 5y ago
> The EU is a terribly inefficient and hopeless organization Compared to what? Efficiency always scaled poorly with size. For what it's worth, bureaucracies of US Federal government, not to mention those of China, India, Russia etc. are far worse, it seems. It's not about the EU's throughput of things, but things it enables. Things like efficient allocation of resources via a single economic area, for example.
ethnt 5y ago
It absolutely was not the right choice for the UK (not just Britain, don't forget about Northern Ireland). The EU has definitely shown itself to be quick when it needs to be, and in general has improved life for the average person. There are nothing but downsides in the immediate and long-term future for the UK without the EU — these economic consequences are not easily solvable, and the Tories have not shown themselves capable of actually solving these problems. The UK had a very privileged place in the EU before, and was able to punch above their weight. When they inevitably rejoin they certainly won't be able to hold that special status again.
joeberon 5y ago
As a Brit, I think "slightly lied to" is a huge under-exaggeration. Literally everyone I spoke to who voted for Brexit did so entirely on the lies, for example the NHS money thing, specific claims about removing "foreigners", and promises of rebuilding of British-only enterprises.
- davzie 5y ago
  I'm sorry but you can't know that. The vast majority of people had probably made their decision before the messaging kicked in. Also you can claim the same the other way. The only reason people voted to remain is because of the scare of no drinking water, no medicines, fear of an instant market crash etc. Both sides can and were manipulated to some extent by false messaging that never came to be, but certainly not everyone voted the way they did as a result of that messaging.

mschuster91 5y ago

Well... looks like the UK are the next in line to discover that paying people in essential industries shit wages leads to said shit outcomes. Over many decades, employees in easy-to-learn and especially easy-to-outsource jobs were treated as disposable cogs, and now after Corona and other crisis crunches the whole house of cards comes crushing down.

bayesian_horse 5y ago
They would still be in the UK doing their shit jobs for shit wages, if they had a better visa situation...
- callamdelaney 5y ago
  There is a massive shortage of HGV drivers across Europe and has been for years. 'It should be noted first and foremost that Britain’s driver shortage is not a new phenomenon. Even in the heady days before Covid or Brexit, the UK was already lacking around 76,000 drivers, according to Logistics UK.'[1] [1] https://www.thegrocer.co.uk/supply-chain/the-real-causes-of-the-hgv-driver-shortage-and-why-we-cant-blame-it-all-on-brexit/659841.article https://www.thegrocer.co.uk/supply-chain/the-real-causes-of-...
TheGigaChad 5y ago
That is BECAUSE they are DISPOSABLE COGS. We got to where are we because the idiots in charge decided to CODDLE THEM.
bellyfullofbac 5y ago
Well, aren't we all in the West (if I may assume where you live) guilty of that? 55 inch TVs are $500 nowadays, mangoes flown from South America are less than $2 in my local supermarket, we like to fly to Thailand because vacationing is "dirt cheap" there...

jjgreen 5y ago

The Mash nailed this last week https://www.thedailymash.co.uk/politics/britain-facing-long-hard-winter-of-it-not-being-brexits-fault-20210923212350 https://www.thedailymash.co.uk/politics/britain-facing-long-...

beardyw 5y ago
And NewsThump today: Government unveils ‘guaranteed to work’ petrol track & trace app to beat fuel crisis https://newsthump.com/2021/09/27/government-unveils-guaranteed-to-work-petrol-track-trace-app-to-beat-fuel-crisis/ https://newsthump.com/2021/09/27/government-unveils-guarante... "You put in your location and details, and then next Tuesday you’ll get an appointment to get precisely three litres of fuel from a pump in Sunderland"

HPsquared 5y ago

People can only fill their tank, so it's self-limiting.

joeberon 5y ago
What do you mean by that? They can fill jerry cans or siphon out fuel at home
- HPsquared 5y ago
  More generally, people have limited capacity by how many fuel containers they own. I don't think there is a massive supply of unused jerry cans anywhere, and and in any case it would take several cans to equal a single car tank.
  - brianwawok 5y ago
    Have a buddy with multiple 50 gallon "drums" he fills up with gas anytime he even suspects that gas price is going to go up. Sounds like a lot of work to maybe save $50, but hey... mostly fun and games (unless you barn catches fire).
    - HPsquared 5y ago
      Of course some buyers are bigger than others but even your friend (unusual as he is) only has so many drums.
    - ben_w 5y ago
      Mm. A Facebook friend in the UK just reported a petrol tout to the police for storing more than 15 litres without a licence.
      - bluGill 5y ago
        Depends on where you live. Farmers in the US typically have around 8000 liters petro on their farm in various grades. They have a contract with a local company to keep those tanks full of whatever the correct fuel for the current season is. When it is a long way to town and many vehicles never go to town having your own private fuel station starts to make sense.

JimmyAxod 5y ago

The media need to be held accountable here. Everyone in the industry is telling anyone who will listen that there is no shortage of petrol (gas), and there is no shortage of drivers. Yet the media are still whipping the story because it’s selling papers/views/clicks etc for them. This is yelling “fire” in a crowded theatre, when there is no fire. There should be prosecutions for this sort of behaviour. Lives will be put at risk or lost because of this. And seriously, the public need to stop listening and believing the media. They have no morals, and they certainly do not care about truth. To those downvoting: If there is still a “crisis” next week, I will eat my hat. There is no crisis. You know this. The media will have moved onto the next “crisis” they can manufacture. From the article: > Drivers queued for hours to fill their cars at petrol stations that were still selling fuel, albeit often rationed. There were also calls for National Health Service (NHS) workers to be given priority to keep hospitals open That is just ridiculous. It’s so far removed from reality. Who queued for hours? Who in their right mind is suggesting hospitals might close? It’s just reckless reporting designed to make panic buying worse. And trying to link it to our decision to leave the EU years ago, is just utter desperation. You all know this is BS, and that in a couple of days, once the story has peaked, and the media has moved onto something else, the “crisis” will be over.

prof-dr-ir 5y ago
Your claim that "there is no shortage of drivers" according to "everyone in the industry" is incorrect. From [0]: BP blamed the restrictions on “delays in the supply change which has been impact by the industry-wide driver shortages across the UK”. Tesco said it had “experienced temporary supply issues caused by driver absences in recent days”, adding: “We expect the situation to improve in the next week and apologise to our customers for any inconvenience caused.” [0] https://inews.co.uk/news/hgv-driver-shortage-bp-to-start-rationing-petrol-and-diesel-due-to-uk-lorry-crisis-1214393 https://inews.co.uk/news/hgv-driver-shortage-bp-to-start-rat...
- JimmyAxod 5y ago
  I’d suggest you should listen to what the drivers, refinery, and actual garage staff say. I think you’ll get much closer to the truth. Tesco aren’t rationing petrol due to the “driver crisis”. They are rationing it due to the media telling people to go and panic buy petrol. As you can see in the article, the only one with driver issues is BP. Other petrol stations have plenty. Yet they are all affected because of the media whipping consumers into panic. And as you can see in the article, BP reports that “between 50 and 100 stations affected”. Out of 1200!!! That’s not even newsworthy, yet the media are whipping and whipping. Can you see the issue with the following… > Petrol stations operated by Morrisons, The Co-op, Sainsbury’s and Asda also said they had no current issues with their fuel supplies, the BBC reported. > LARGE FONT ALL BOLD! ‘Rapidly worsening crisis’ > Jim McMahon, Shadow Transport Secretary, described the lorry driver shortage as a “rapidly worsening crisis” that required urgent Government attention. So the petrol stations say it’s all fine, and the article shouts “RAPIDLY WORSENING CRISIS”. This, as I say, is disgraceful reporting, and is shouting “fire” in a crowded theatre where there is no fire.

mise_en_place 5y ago

The headline title is misleading, to say the least. It should read “Pumps run dry at some gas stations in Britain”. This is normal and to be expected due to record high crude oil prices and logistics/shipping prices.

traveler01 5y ago

"British ministers have insisted that Brexit is nothing to do with the current trucker shortage." BUT... "The government on Sunday announced a plan to issue temporary visas for 5,000 foreign truck drivers." The politicians think that everyone's dumb. If you need to pass temporary visas, a thing that truckers didn't needed when UK was in the EU, clearly Brexit caused this issue.

kwhitefoot 5y ago
Brexit didn't cause it, it just made it more obvious. The problem is not a shortage of drivers, it is the poor pay and conditions.
tim333 5y ago
There were multiple factors of which brexit was maybe number two. People stopping working due to covid was no 1. Also the diver license folk knocking off.

mcot2 5y ago

Solar + Battery + EV - No need for a pump, just sayin…

addingnumbers 5y ago
How much panel surface would you need to drive an EV, say, 100 miles a week?
- jillesvangurp 5y ago
  A Tesla does about 4 miles per kw, give or take. So 100 miles would use about 25 KWH. Typical solar panel setups for domestic usage are around 3-4 KW. So depending on the season, you could get to 25KWH in a single day in the summer and you might struggle to get there in a week in the winter. All depends on you latitude, cloud coverage, etc. If you are in the north of Scottland, probably not a great plan in the winter but fantastic yields in the summer due to the long days.
- vel0city 5y ago
  This will need to make some assumptions based on how many good hours of solar generation you get. This will vary quite a bit based on latitude and season. Assuming you get ~6 hours of good generation a day on average, charging 7 days a week means you'll get 42 hours of good solar power output. Depending on your EV car, your driving habits, etc you might get ~4mi/kWh. So for 100mi, you're looking at 25kWh to get your 100mi weekly range. So over the course of 42 weekly hours, you'll need to come up with 25kWh. 25,000Wh / 42 hours converts to ~595.24W. So you'll want about 600W of generation capacity. Modern PV cells usually get ~150W per square meter, so 600 W / 150 W/m^2 = 4 m^2. You'll probably want to add a bit of additional overhead to deal with the weeks where you don't get quite a much sun and also with some of the losses in the system. As an additional note, this is only really thinking about the "peak" hours in the system. You'll get a few more hours a day charging at a lot of latitudes. This can also vary a decent bit based on the layout of your solar array.
sgt101 5y ago
I've got a tesla and a plug, there's no need for a pump with that setup either...

throwawaymanbot 5y ago

Damn that labor govt.

hardlianotion 5y ago

They are petrol stations.

binbag 5y ago

It's OK everyone, the government says there is no shortage, so there isn't one. That's how it works in the New Sovereign UK.

plutonorm 5y ago

Seems strange that this has nothing at all to do with the rapidly rising prices of petrol in the UK. Russia has been reducing the flow of petrol into Europe due to conflict over a new pipeline. The UK has a had a terrible windy season, meaning more demand for fossil fuels. And economic recovery after the pandemic, all these things have pushed prices really high. This shortage of drivers thing is likely a convenient side story to distract from the fundamental issue of high prices. https://www.theguardian.com/money/2021/aug/04/uk-petrol-prices-at-highest-level-since-2013-with-more-rises-expected https://www.theguardian.com/money/2021/aug/04/uk-petrol-pric...

WJW 5y ago
How would a windy season lead to more demand for fossil fuels? You'd think all the wind turbines going full swing would mean less electricity has to be generated with non-renewable means, thereby reducing demand for fossil fuels.
- nicktelford 5y ago
  By "terrible windy season", he means that a season that is usually expected to be very windy has instead been quite still.
- regularfry 5y ago
  A terrible windy season is one in which there is less wind. This would be different to a terribly windy season, in which there is too much. We've just had a low-wind summer, increasing the demand for gas.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]

gpderetta 5y ago

Well it didn't take long after the apocalypse to go full Mad Max Hopefully it is just another toilet roll craze.

newbamboo 5y ago

Diesel too?

tim333 5y ago
Yup. Apparently there's been a 20x increase in people putting the wrong fuel in their vehicle - diesel in petrol or visa versa which is rather dumb.

animal531 5y ago

Here is South Africa during our last Covid lockdown there were also a shortage going on. But then the government banned the selling of petrol to people who were bringing random containers, which apparently made up a big portion of the total sales.