Rather than a maximum spend for petrol, we need a minimum

[KingsleyShacklebolt]

Lots of talk of rationing petrol to deal with the people who are panic buying.

I would suggest an alternative approach - a minimum spend. I filled my car yesterday, it's a big mum bus MPV thing so takes £60 - £70 of diesel to fill up. And before anyone asks yes I did need to fill it, it was well into the red.

But the woman in front of me and the man adjacent spent less than £10 each. So their car was clearly not empty.

So why not have a minimum spend? Say £20 or £30? It would stop people topping up every couple of days "just in case". Would stop people filling jerry cans. People aren't going to keep filling up jerry cans or topping up every day if they know that their couple of litres is going to cost £30.

People are actually running out. How do you propose they move their cars if they can't get a canful?

Allow a Jerry can per person. Very, very few people need to fill a car boot full of containers as some are doing.

@Suitcaseseverywhere

Saying you shouldn’t base your life around car driving is damn urban centric.

Not everyone lives in towns or cities where there are other ways to get around.

I come from rural Yorkshire, where most of the people I grew up with didn't have cars.

The culture has changed to make it an expectation.

We need to change the culture back

@ThinWomansBrain

£30 minimum spend? For people that have sensible cars rather than chelsea tractors, that's more than a full tank.

I want to buy my petrol where you are. I have pretty much the smallest car you can get and bought probably the cheapest petrol in my city and it was still over £45 to fill it up.

I haven’t CHOSEN to set my life up to need a car. I was being and brought up in a very rural area.

Once I divorced I couldn’t move as my kids were at school here and my support network was and is here.

Ffs. Some people on here actually have no clue.

*born

What a horrible thread. That may be all they could afford.

@Bertiebassetsbabe

When I drive down to see my family, a full tank will get me there and back…just. So if I’m planning a trip to see them, I’ll fill up even if it’s a tenner as that is the difference between getting there and back and running out of petrol with a few miles left.

I don’t get the logic of this. You know there will be petrol stations near your relatives, so you could always buy petrol then? Then you won’t be nearly empty when you get back.

How do you propose I should’ve got to work without a car?

It’s 10 miles to the station, and there are no buses from my village that would’ve got me to work on time.

I have another suggestion (not being realistic here obviously but just trying to show OP how fecking ridiculous her idea is)

Anyone who has 3 teens and a mum bus should only be allowed to buy £15 of petrol every other Tuesday night at 20:01 exactly and only if three crows are sitting near the petrol station.

OP I cannot believe how little understanding and empathy you have for others.

It's not always a "budgeting" issue it's often a flipping lack of money issue.

There is a minimum amount BTW.

@Franklin12

The women who was photographed filling up a long line of cans. The man who had as many containers in his boot as he could. I am sure they had their reasons but this is bringing up the worst in people. Was it really 20 years we had the last petrol shortage?

I think the £10 because they cannot afford more is a bit of red herring. Owning a car is expensive. Anyone who can only put in £10 is rare. Whenever I have filled up I have never noticed anyone putting in £10 - why now??

I worked at a supermarket during ‘toilet gate’. The excuses people would come up with were shameful..one man said he wanted 6 packs of loo rolls because he was buying for the old and one was disabled. When I suggested he could split the packs (they were 16 roll ones) he said his group wouldnt like him to do that.

Eventually he brought the 2 pack allowance and then came in a few mins later and used another till to pay. Couples were coming in were splitting up at the front and using two trolleys to again get their ‘allowance’.

Shameful, selfish behaviour.

Red herring?

No dear, facts.

Possibly you have "never noticed anyone putting in £10" because you live in an affluent area. Or you never noticed because it wouldn't occur to you that many other people are broke.
More likely a logic fail though, as your premise "cars are expensive, therefore anyone with a car has more than a tenner" won't be winning you any intellectual prizes.

I'm embarrassed that so many Brits are so totally clueless at how the other half live. Where do you get your news, your world view? How is it you have managed to get through life so protected from the fact that millions of your fellow countrywomen are skint & often hungry?

@Orangejuicemarathoner All those awful farmers growing your food, how morally bankrupt they are.

some, but very few, and of those that do, it is mostly people who have chosen to set up their life style to be car dependent, and we absolutely have to get our culture out of the mindset that this is ok, because it is not.

There's simply not enough housing, for the whole country in places that has good transport links.

Instead of blaming individuals for just trying to get to work or uni. Why not blame successive governments who have been happy to let these situations happen? What action are you taking to improve that, so more people can using public transport?

Governments quite, happy for loads of places to have poor transport links for years.

People are just trying to live their lives and do their best. They can't make the bus routes better

The problem is this policy would penalise the poorest and benefit people who are more well off. If lockdown showed anything, it is that vast swathes of NMW workers are key workers and could not work from home (carers, shop workers, delivery drivers).They need transport to work and dont necessarily have a spare £30 lying around to put in their car. Public transport is also not cheap, especially when you are already paying car related expenses (tax, insurance, MOT, service), so the solution is not for all these people to use public transport for a bit either.

Unfortunately the social climate at the moment is strongly inclined towards every person for themselves. Squabbling amongst each other over who has the greatest need or entitlement, or who deserves fuel/toilet roll/food more is just increasing divisions in this country.

You know what I think? That people who think their privileged life's are above everyone else, should be forced to volunteer in food banks. See the real poverty of England. Maybe you wouldn't post stupid posts like this after seeing people going without food to feed their kids, or choosing heating over food, or putting £10 worth of petrol to get to work and back because that's all they can afford.
I can't believe people like you exist in this day and age, such a strange way of thinking.

And for a STUDENT to CHOOSE to do that as part of their university life is morally utterly bankrupt

How utterly ridiculous and incredibly naive. What about all those students who have an established life, roles and responsibilities which they can only manage whilst studying if they have a car?

What about students who have to go on placements in order to qualify? A fairly standard rule for placements for nurses is that anything up to a two hour commute each way is acceptable, shifts start at 7. How easy do you think it is to get a bus at that time of the morning which might take two hours to get there - and home at the end of a twelve hour shift?

It might not fit your idealism but actually sometimes people do need cars in order to contribute to the wider well-being of society. Of course there are people who use them for convenience but to assume that’s everyone? It’s either naive or arrogant.

People could make bus routes better if they write to their MP and vote for politicians that act on such things.

Maybe OP and her teens should try walking or cycling then someone else could have had that fuel since she thinks she is so charitable

My mum used to fill up £2/3 at a time when we were younger. Petrol was cheaper 20years ago but I’d still say it was less than £10 today as we didn’t have the money to put in any more.

There should definitely be some kind of rationing but I don’t know how it would work in practice.
The only thing that would actually help would be if we had another lockdown for a week or 2 and only key workers were going to work so there are less cars on the road. I remember barely seeing any cars on the road during lockdown. But even that would be a temporary solution and may result in panicking buying of toilet rolls again.

I’ve always known how much we rely on immigrants in this country but I don’t think I realised just how much. I think it’s a slap in the face for them to have been kicked out and now we’re asking for them back temporarily. They also need poultry workers.

For a long term solution there should be some free training for people on job seekers to help fill these gaps.

@QueenoftheKarens

You know what I think? That people who think their privileged life's are above everyone else, should be forced to volunteer in food banks. See the real poverty of England. Maybe you wouldn't post stupid posts like this after seeing people going without food to feed their kids, or choosing heating over food, or putting £10 worth of petrol to get to work and back because that's all they can afford. I can't believe people like you exist in this day and age, such a strange way of thinking.

Agreed. Nothing as fucking irritating as the voice of privilege lecturing the have nots.

@NantesElephant

People could make bus routes better if they write to their MP and vote for politicians that act on such things.

Ah yes, because no one round here has ever done that. Why didn't the whole area not think of this.

It does nothing.

@QueenoftheKarens

You know what I think? That people who think their privileged life's are above everyone else, should be forced to volunteer in food banks. See the real poverty of England. Maybe you wouldn't post stupid posts like this after seeing people going without food to feed their kids, or choosing heating over food, or putting £10 worth of petrol to get to work and back because that's all they can afford. I can't believe people like you exist in this day and age, such a strange way of thinking.

I could be equally judgey and reply that I can't believe people exist who still don't know that not everyone in the UK lives in England, but there you go.

But if everyone was buying as they have always bought, there wouldn't be the queues we've all experienced in the last three days, would there?

🙄 You are either really struggling to wrap your head around this (fairly simple) concept or you're on a wind up.

Yes. Some people are spending outside of their regular patterns. But you want to ban everyone from spending less than X amount, whether that's their usual habit or not and despite the fact that this would massively disadvantage the poorest drivers and lowest paid workers.

You feel you should be entitled to make choices - free from judgement - that have a detrimental impact on the environment and on other people (driving a huge car that you don't need, filling your tank unnecessarily during a fuel shortage) but you also want to curtail the purchasing habits of other people who are actually causing far fewer problems (especially long-term) than you are.

You are a hypocrite and you can't see beyond the end of your nose, "volunteer" or not.

And before anyone pounces on me, yes I realise we're not actually experiencing a fuel shortage, but it was a quick way to describe the current situation at the forecourts and I'm sure people are capable of understanding that.

My car only holds £20. If there was a £30 minimum spend, I'd be giving the petrol station £10 for free. Obviously I wouldn't be doing that so what would I do with the £10 of petrol I don't want or need? Spray it over the forecourt?

This thread is utterly repulsive.
Some of us just don’t have the money. I can’t afford £30 minimum spend, I can barely afford £10. I live rurally so I have to have a car.

How often - in normal times without panic buying - are people running out of fuel? why does it matter how often? Why would you penalise anyone in that situation?