If you keep panic buying fuel you'll be homeschooling again!😆

[FishesWithWishes]

Teachers need to teach in schools don't they?

Sort of, but it's not really possible to sell and rebuy a house each time you change jobs at a cost of tend of thousands of pounds, is it? And sometimes the change of job is not by choice.

No but it might make some people rethink how they live their lives, possibly, a bit like covid did. I'm not suggesting now or tomorrow but the future

So move house every time you switch jobs?

Distance to work is only one consideration when buying a house. There's lots of other compromises and decisions to make. Easier to move jobs than move house.

That was to mac not dangling.

Macncheese no, it really isn't. Loads of people cannot afford to live within walking or cycling distance of their work and funnily enough cannot "just" get another job closer in the area they have skills, interest and ability in, or are you including in your definition of "choice" that everyone should only ever take whatever work most easily fits in with everything else?
Also, you may not have chosen to send you kids to the school they got a place in, which may be on the opposite side of town to where you work, live or have another child in school.
Living in the countryside (ie without effective public transport or roads safe for cycling) may be the best option for health reasons, (physical and mental), or to be close to family, or because outside of work that person finds fulfillment in outdoor space and hobbies, or keeps animals. I suppose you could say its always a choice not to put paid work as your first priority always and arrange everything else around that but is that really what we want to advocate? How many times on here are (usually men) slated for doing exactly that?
There are many many ways that a person can find themselves reliant on a car and arrange their lives taking into account their ability to drive. When my ex didn't drive, he chose to live close to work and the station, once he passed, he was able to choose to live in a better area. You can't blame people who are in a pickle right now for not foreseeing this ridiculous situation and choosing to design their entire life infrastructure around a sudden restriction on car
travel.

Depends how often you change jobs! But that's not what I said at all.

and if we are talking about "the future", you'd have to undo years of common car ownership and town planning that assumes it - forget the out of town retail parks, cinema and leisure parks, everything would have to be redesigned to allow for local, town centre based shops and time for people to get to them, as presumably we won't be collecting a weeks worth of shopping in one go, or having it delivered? The entire infrastructure of modern life is based around car owndership - you have to undo that and put in realistic replacements if you want people to choose to not use them

Went to petrol station yesterday afternoon.
Quiet Sunday as usual.
Filled up, came home.

I live in France.

Yes hughackman, that's what I'm talking about, hope fully the entire infrastructure of modern life won't be so car centric

We couldn't afford to live in the town that ds's special school is in and nor could many of the staff I imagine. Not everyone has the luxury of their child being able to attend a local school.

well that's lovely but its a massive and structural change that has to come from the top down with effective planning and investment - eg, putting in proper upgrades to train routes in the north instead of dicking about spending billions on HS2 and then saying actually its not going to go beyond Manchester- there's a whole lot of the UK beyond Manchester. Individuals virtuously cycling to work and school and taking 4 times as long to get anything done isn't the answer.

Frankly, there isn't enough housing stock near my DS's school for all the teachers and staff to buy up the nearby houses even if they wanted to.

Not all schools are on bus routes or near train stations either, funnily enough.... the children will be provided with bus transport but not the adults.

Most adults live with other people so whilst one partner may live in the location that suits for walking/public transport and so on, its harder to arrange for both to. Unless we imagine still everyone living in a place festooned with public transport options.

@Macncheeseballs

Peaseossom, but do you ever thing about moving or changing jobs?, I've never commuted 50 miles in my life and nor would I choose to

Not really , We have three elderly parents here who rely on us for support and increasingly care , it’s not like he could do his job much closer and we couldn’t ( at the time his firm moved to the other city) afford to buy there plus we had dc settled in school here and my local job.

Tbh lots of people around here commute those kinds of distances. Hardly any of my dc school friends have parents who both work locally .

Hughackman, 'virtuously cycling'? Is that how cyclists cycle? And 'Taking 4 times as long to get anything done'? What commuting? That's not true

I reckon that the actual % of teachers impacted would be low due to:

A large proportion will have an option other than driving, eg live local or have access to public transport including taxis. (V v v few areas with out a taxi)

Of those that have no option but to drive the amount of teachers that allowed themselves to get down to no fuel is likely to be in the minority

Of that minority a good proportion will live in areas not particularly impacted (yes, there are areas which have plenty of fuel)

So I reckon the actual number will be low.

If I had to cycle or walk to school (I'm a teacher) yes it would indeed take 4 times as long. I also have to get one of my two kids to school which is not on the way. I'm a single parent.. I often nip out in a free period or lunchtime to run an errand.. Couldnt do that without a car. Don't make ridiculous blanket statements about 'not true' when you have no clue what people's circumstances are. And yes some people do make a virtue out of cycling /knitting their own baby wipes etc.

we won't be collecting a weeks worth of shopping in one go, or having it delivered?

I would have thought having it delivered is the most likely scenario.

That’s what used to happen in the days before mass car ownership.

Hugh, Ah, you were talking about your commute, apologies I thought it was a blanket statement about cycling, also I didn't know one could knit baby wipes, how resourceful

I personally have not bought petrol though so cannot be included in some of the righteous bashing that is going on 😂🤣

I suspect that teachers were equally represented in the panic buyers though.

And happy for teaching to be remote. My son's new school did excellent remote teaching via Google meets, saves on the school run 👍

@maddening

I reckon that the actual % of teachers impacted would be low due to:

A large proportion will have an option other than driving, eg live local or have access to public transport including taxis. (V v v few areas with out a taxi)

Of those that have no option but to drive the amount of teachers that allowed themselves to get down to no fuel is likely to be in the minority

Of that minority a good proportion will live in areas not particularly impacted (yes, there are areas which have plenty of fuel)

So I reckon the actual number will be low.

So an app called TeacherTapp has measured this before. The vast majority of teachers drive to work and live more than 10 miles from work. Not only would that be a vvvvv epxensive taxi but a poster upthread did mention no one can get a taxi at school run times.

If the issue isn't sorted the problem will mount during the week.

My community Facebook page (so people doing all sorts of jobs) is full of people who cannot get petrol and are running on fumes.

allowed themselves to get down to no fuel

Just spotted the allowed. Interesting positioning of blame there.

@Piggywaspushed

allowed themselves to get down to no fuel

Just spotted the allowed. Interesting positioning of blame there.

Indeed. I wonder if anyone would say the same about taxi drivers, NHS staff, carers, driving instructors etc.

How exactly will shopping be delivered if the vans have no fuel ? I’m expecting a parcel , fully expecting it to not arrive due to there being no transport.

As someone who works in the taxi industry, my advice to anyone who thinks they can rely on a taxi in the coming weeks is ... Good luck.

We're already in the shit due to driver shortages (even pre-book taxis aren't being fulfilled), so when taxi drivers are unable to fill up they simply won't work. Most taxi drivers are self employed, and taxi firms don't have super secret petrol pumps we're hiding from the public.