Not all petrol stations have separate HGV areas. Where I live there are very few large, motorway style service stations. Lots of little ones, though. They typically have one or two pumps with a fast flow pump (ie for HGV use).
Last time I worked on a wet site we were situated in an industrial area, so even though a lot of companies have their own pumps, not all do. We’d have anything from tow trucks to furniture delivery lorries filling up. All at several hundred a go. Companies may struggle to get deliveries to their own pumps, and so need to use service stations instead, too.
It’s very probable you’ll see more and more HGVs in petrol stations in the coming weeks if fuel deliveries aren’t sorted soon, as they’ll have no other choice.
And on the basis on them being in different areas, yes that means that the HGV pumps are likely separate tanks, however when a fuel delivery comes, it is X litres for the whole site. Obviously priority will be given to filling the HGV tanks first, but if there’s only so many litres to go around, you might very well may see the other regular consumer tanks being unable to be filled. And so those pumps will be “out of order”. And the chaos continues.
The media have done wonders, though. More and more people will be panic buying now and it will get worse and worse. This is only the beginning. The more people see queues outside petrol stations, the more queues will be created. The more “sold out” signs there are, there will be twice as many tomorrow.
This is exactly how it started last year. It will get much worse before it gets better.