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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To disagree with NHS only petrol stations?

638 replies

pistachio20 · 27/09/2021 11:08

Some petrol stations around me have now said that they are only allowing in NHS staff to refuel - apparently checking ID.

I find this completely ridiculous and unfair - not only because the majority of NHS staff where I live can easily get public transport to work (most who I know don’t drive to work anyway, and get train/bus anyway due to lack of free parking!).

So many crucial jobs require people to drive, let alone people with caring responsibilities, mobility issues, etc.

AIBU to think that it’s unfair?

OP posts:
toooothacheee · 29/09/2021 10:12

My suggestion about a fuel amount cap unless you are a specific type of key worker doesn't need to a competition over who is more deserving.
It would literally be a case of who actually drives as part their job therefore needs fuel to work throughout the day, as opposed to someone who only travels to their place of work and then back home again.

TinselTitsAndGlitteryBits · 29/09/2021 10:14

@toooothacheee

My suggestion about a fuel amount cap unless you are a specific type of key worker doesn't need to a competition over who is more deserving. It would literally be a case of who actually drives as part their job therefore needs fuel to work throughout the day, as opposed to someone who only travels to their place of work and then back home again.
This is what I agree with!

Job title/organisation/status.. doesn't matter. If you have to drive for a living (as in have no other option) you should be priority.

Simple.

user1497207191 · 29/09/2021 10:17

[quote cricketmum84]@toooothacheee ah I had missed that but. It's obviously too early for me Grin

Still though I do think a maximum cap will mean more petrol station visits even for non essential workers. So the queues won't go down.

People just need to buy fuel as they normally would before all this craziness started. That's the only way it will stop. [/quote]
It will naturally sort it self out once all those who use relatively low amounts of fuel have filled up. They won't need to fill up again for many days/weeks. It's just a blip caused by so many idiots with half full tanks deciding to fill them up "just in case". It'll only be the heavier users who'll need to keep filling up every few days, just like they've always done. If people with half full tanks, who don't need to fill up, just stayed away from petrol stations for a few days, the problem will resolve itself.

SylviaTrench · 29/09/2021 10:20

Someone up thread said it best, we are all cogs in a big wheel. Some cogs are paid more than others, they might be thought of as more powerful or as having more prestige. Without the little cogs though, the wheel will stop turning.

A hospital consultant is quite rightly, hugely important to society.
A minimum-wage fuel-station worker is also hugely important to society, especially at the moment as they potentially have power over the hospital consultant.

Explosivefarts · 29/09/2021 10:35

@toooothacheee

But how would one prove they are unpaid carer we have no ID for that ?

Would an unpaid carer need priority treatment for fuel the way an employed carer would?

An employed carer will travel from home to home throughout the day and require more fuel than an unpaid carer who generally only looks after one person/relative etc? Which is why I said someone who needs fuel to actually carry out their job would need priority over someone who say only travels to one place and back home again?

Yes they would when they need to travel 15 miles to visit the person they care for at 6am . When no public transport runs . But then again if not my paid job I guess it’s not priority . She wouldn’t need to be dressed and feed for the day . Or her medication of course she won’t need that. If every unpaid carer decided to hand over the care to the NHS I’m sure they could find the £119 billion that unpaid carers save them yearly .
havesomepatience · 29/09/2021 10:43

I agree with lots of the posts regarding non essential NHS staff getting priority, why should anyone who can get public transport get priority over others. However I do think that anyone who drives an essential vehicle for NHS and gets a milage allowance for doing so should get priority as well as emergency vehicles etc.

Margerine78 · 29/09/2021 10:46

YABU (very). I'm sure your opinion would change should you or someone you love need an ambulance.

cadburyegg · 29/09/2021 10:50

I think key workers should be given priority to an extent but everyone else needs petrol too! Perhaps the best way would be to impose a filling limit of £30 (or whatever) to everyone except key workers/NHS staff etc?

I have enough petrol to last another week or so, so I haven't filled up. I am going to fill my mum's car up today (hopefully!) because she needs petrol to get to my house so she can do the school run 3 days a week, which enables me to work!

Bunnyfuller · 29/09/2021 10:52

Police and Fire have the same need to get to work, but not included why?

Wazzzzzzzup · 29/09/2021 10:53

@Bunnyfuller

Police and Fire have the same need to get to work, but not included why?
Because they aren't nurses... It's about the buzzwords now, not even about an actual job
toooothacheee · 29/09/2021 10:55

Yes they would when they need to travel 15 miles to visit the person they care for at 6am . When no public transport runs . But then again if not my paid job I guess it’s not priority . She wouldn’t need to be dressed and feed for the day . Or her medication of course she won’t need that. If every unpaid carer decided to hand over the care to the NHS I’m sure they could find the £119 billion that unpaid carers save them yearly .

Is that what I said though? 🙄

And I speak as an unpaid carer myself.

It is not a competition.

My idea was that there could be a fuel cap to slow down how much fuel is being bought, and anybody who drives throughout the day as part of their job could provide proof of their job and be allowed to fill up unlimited.

There is no perfect solution.

But there is no need to start turning it into a row over who needs it more.

toooothacheee · 29/09/2021 11:01

@Explosivefarts

And I don't think 15 miles say, twice a day (there and back) is an astronomical amount of fuel that would justify you needing to be prioritised for unlimited fuel in the same way as an employed carer traveling from house to house.

That's nothing to do with more/less important work, that's just fuel consumption.

Explosivefarts · 29/09/2021 11:11

[quote toooothacheee]@Explosivefarts

And I don't think 15 miles say, twice a day (there and back) is an astronomical amount of fuel that would justify you needing to be prioritised for unlimited fuel in the same way as an employed carer traveling from house to house.

That's nothing to do with more/less important work, that's just fuel consumption.[/quote]
Nope not twice a day I need to come back before my husband goes to work to take kids to school. Then I need to head over again at lunch for her next meds stay till time to pick kids up from school. Come back home and then go again to put her in bed change nappy’s etc before bedtime . So 90 miles a day.

WingingItSince1973 · 29/09/2021 11:18

@Ionsion

I’m due to have an operation this week. There is a chance I have cancer and this operation is mainly to find out if I do or not. I don’t want my operation cancelled due to staff not being able to go to work.
I really hope you get your operation @Ionsion and it's not cancer. It's such an awful time for people like yourself and others facing serious illnesses. Lots of love to you xxx
toooothacheee · 29/09/2021 11:18

Nope not twice a day I need to come back before my husband goes to work to take kids to school. Then I need to head over again at lunch for her next meds stay till time to pick kids up from school. Come back home and then go again to put her in bed change nappy’s etc before bedtime . So 90 miles a day.

I just made a suggestion for what the government could do to alleviate the the pressure temporarily, but that there would be no perfect solution.

At no point did I suggest that people shouldn't be allowed fuel to go about their personal business. And at no point did I claim what anyone was doing was more important than anyone else.

Xenia · 29/09/2021 12:04

What would really help is if Shell and Esso would post on their twitter feeds every morning a link to a website that says which stations have petrol and diesel. I think all our local ones are now entirely out of all fuel and I dom't want to use the little I have left going out to check. I used enough on Saturday and Sunday abortively trying to fill up.

Wazzzzzzzup · 29/09/2021 12:07

@Xenia

What would really help is if Shell and Esso would post on their twitter feeds every morning a link to a website that says which stations have petrol and diesel. I think all our local ones are now entirely out of all fuel and I dom't want to use the little I have left going out to check. I used enough on Saturday and Sunday abortively trying to fill up.
Where do you live?
OhGiveUp · 29/09/2021 12:11

@FrozenWillow You could also pray that the nurses house doesn't catch fire and there's no firefighters to put it out.
Or you could pray that the nurse doesn't get burgled and there's no police to attend.
See where this is going?

cricketmum84 · 29/09/2021 12:29

@toooothacheee

Yes they would when they need to travel 15 miles to visit the person they care for at 6am . When no public transport runs . But then again if not my paid job I guess it’s not priority . She wouldn’t need to be dressed and feed for the day . Or her medication of course she won’t need that. If every unpaid carer decided to hand over the care to the NHS I’m sure they could find the £119 billion that unpaid carers save them yearly .

Is that what I said though? 🙄

And I speak as an unpaid carer myself.

It is not a competition.

My idea was that there could be a fuel cap to slow down how much fuel is being bought, and anybody who drives throughout the day as part of their job could provide proof of their job and be allowed to fill up unlimited.

There is no perfect solution.

But there is no need to start turning it into a row over who needs it more.

Quite rightly said! It's not a competition of who is more deserving. Just recognition that some people really need that fuel and some people are just being dicks.

@toooothacheee my DH is my unpaid carer too. I work from home in an NHS admin role so technically could go to a petrol station designated for NHS staff only with him and queue jump but right now we don't need it until my next hospital appointment at the end of October. Hopefully all the idiots will have full tanks by then!!!

ConfusedCarrie · 29/09/2021 12:31

Doctors, nurses and paramedics are important, obviously, but so are police, firemen, teachers, support staff, supermarket staff, tanker drivers, lorry drivers, delivery drivers,. In fact everyone that was on the government's first essential worker list during lockdown. The petrol stations around my way, loads of people filling jerry cans. Just stop them. Don't limit fuel, make NHS only stations or anything else. Just stop people filling 5 or 6 jerry cans and their car.

AnneElliott · 29/09/2021 12:47

I agree the petrol stations should have a fuel cap and not allow Jerry cans.

I got some last night and Shell had a £35 limit which was fine. Dickhead in front though put in £65 but because he paid via the app and didn't go inside he got away with it. The staff were getting lots of complaints(not from me) and god knows how much worse it would be if they checked IDs as well!

Sarbears28 · 29/09/2021 13:25

Its beyond the joke. People are stupid enough to panic buy, not learning from last year and have now created this problem we are facing. I currently have 2miles of diesel in my car. I'm in a high risk pregnancy with multiple midwife and consultant appointments (that need to be face to face) along with having work and 2 children under 4. Its ridiculous that all my local petrol stations are now out of diesel. My dh couldn't even fill up a Jerry can for me near his work yesterday as they refused to allow him. If people just took what they needed and when they needed this wouldn't have happened. Idiots.

Intercity225 · 29/09/2021 13:26

We can remember about 20 years ago, there was some sort of fuel shortage. Our council provided a taxi to take DD and 4 other children in our town, to a school in another town 10 miles away. The taxi driver told us, he was allowed to fill up with fuel from the council's own fuel depot, as he was on official business.

IMO, the emergency services (like ambulances, police cars, the cars of district nurses, carers, etc) should still have their own fuel depots - it is ludicrous that they should be held to ransom by the vagaries of the market's supply and demand problems.

Bideshi · 29/09/2021 13:30

@Bunnyfuller

Police and Fire have the same need to get to work, but not included why?
Yes but it’s not a matter of getting to work. It’s a matter of actually doing your work. A community nurse or midwife in a rural area drives from house to house and in a spread out area will travel miles and miles in the course of a single day.

Incidentally a lot of the drivel about theNHS goes back to a television series in the ?70s about nurses. Called (inevitably) ‘Angels’

cricketmum84 · 29/09/2021 13:41

Incidentally a lot of the drivel about theNHS goes back to a television series in the ?70s about nurses. Called (inevitably) ‘Angels’

The "drivel" about the NHS? I sure hope you don't ever need an NHS nurse to care for you.

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