OK, this isn't funny any more. Where's the army?

[Orangejuicemarathoner]

One quarter of staff and students late to school this morning, and 10% didn't get there at all. It has been announced that, excepting physical disability, any student within 4 miles or adult within 6 miles will be expected to walk in, but Its expected to be worse tomorrow with a good chance we will be closed by Wednesday.

AA reporting over 100 "incidents" on the road within a 10 mile radius of the school - mostly roads blocked, and mostly by queues outside petrol stations.

I struggled to get home by bike, because of the chaos on the roads - I got off my bike and walked several miles of it.

I called in at a supermarket on the way home. The shelves were more than three quarters empty. No bread or milk. So I'm sitting here drinking black tea planning rice for dinner instead of cheese on toast.

I know its not a catastrophe that I spent an extra hour getting home, and dont have milk in my tea, but what is that saying about the state we are in?

AIBU to say the army should be called in. What have we got an army for? Surely, an organisation of thousands of fit, capable, organised individuals, with vehicles and capacity and skills in logistics is exactly what we need to be utilised in this situation right here right now.

PS, is it ok to feed dog food to cats? does anyone know?

Well how many tanker drivers do you think the army has? Enough to sort a national level problem? Guess what, they have GPs and dentists too- maybe they can come in and solve our issues with getting appointments??!

Military family here.

And I am absolutely sure the RLC have the fully fuel qualified drivers.

But as at least one poster is saying that there isn't a shortage of drivers, and it'll all be fine with the current number (so presumably no need to a new visa regime either) so in those circs there is no obvious role for the military

I work in a hospital and lots of people didn't make it in today

@Imnothereforthedrama

Is this true or are you being extremely dramatic? I don’t know where you are but all was fine near me , I needed petrol on my way home and no queue no limit there was just no diesel. Nobody where I work didn’t not turn up because couldn’t get to work . My dh went to supermarket and he didn’t notice no shortages . The media keep reporting shortages in my area but everyone I’ve spoken to has managed to get petrol .

I honestly can't tell if you're joking or not! You're either on the wind-up or deluded. How can you claim there's no shortages, everything's fine, but IN THE SAME SENTENCE say that your local fuel station has run out of diesel!

To add, what do you think the army are going to do about people bulk buying fuel? “DROP TO THE GROUND AND GIVE ME 100 PUSH UPS! 150 IF YOU FILL UP ONE MORE JERRY CAN!”

No… that isn’t going to happen

DH has been for a walk to Aldi to buy pull ups for DC2, were down to our last one so that shouldn’t count as panic buying, they are out of the elusive size 7’s so the poor child will have to make do with a 6.

Anyway, he has to walk past two petrol stations, and yes there are small queues, but only because the forecourts are shut off as both Shell and Asda have tankers delivering.

There were rumours the Asda in the next village had restricted their pay at pumps to £30 a time, but I’ve not had that confirmed.

cardibach
It wasn’t fake news @IvySneezes There were shortages round here for a good week before it broke in the news.“

We’ve been noticing shortages in some shops where we are (medium sized, NW town) for several weeks too. Only ones that have really inconvenienced us personally were eggs, milk and plain flour but there have certainly been lots more gaps on shelves.

Need to refuel in the NW.

Went to 6 different petrol stations.
3 had unleaded only. One had supreme unleaded. 2 had nothing.

Pity I need diesel, they all seemed to be out of diesel. I'm ok for now. But not got much fuel left. Will have to try again tomorrow.

There's no petrol shortage, except the one caused by idiots panicking because a newspaper got it's knickers in a twist.

Well how many tanker drivers do you think the army has

Several hundred. For fully qualified fuel handling.

@3luckystars

2 things have struck me this week:

The reliance on cars is not a good idea anymore.

People are really reallyanxious, this is understandable, but hopefully it is not long term for everyone or it will just be one panic after another.

And that EV"s are actually quite useful at times like this 😁

[quote QueenoftheKarens]@cardibach no we're not the only ones with shortage of drivers! It's across the whole of Europe www.bifa.org/news/articles/2018/dec/truck-driver-shortage-crisis-now-spreading-across-the-whole-of-europe stop believing what the Daily fail sprout. [/quote]
That article is 2018 so obviously doesn't consider brexit.

Yes, there is a shortage of drivers all over. However, there is no shortage of fuel here in Ireland. No issues with supermarket shelves either other than some own brand stuff missing from UK owned supermarkets.

I think the treatment of drivers in the UK, the lack of organisation by the UK re brexit and the massive increase in red tape since brexit means the UK is seeing issues the EU is not seeing.

Roads were totally normal here today

Why do people lead such chaotic and disorganised lives though? I mean why wait until your car is running on fumes before you decide you need petrol, or why wait until you’re on your last drop of milk or slice of bread before you get some more?
I honestly could not live like this, it’s so dysfunctional , it’s just asking for drama.

I often wait till the car has 5 or 10 miles of diesel left in it. i live about a mile away from 2 petrol stations and until this week there has never been an occassion in the last 16 years that both simultaneously ran out of fuel.
I haven't before felt particularly anxious or panic stricken about it. FWIW I think I have just under 1/4 tank of fuel at the moment and am planning on doing (and encouraging kids to) as many journeys on foot or cycle as we can.

@Stormsy lots of teachers that work in London don't live in London ... and not all of 'London' has the tube.

Yes several hundred. And we have a shortage of 100,000 drivers. That's where the discrepancy lies. If we were only several hundred short we'd not be in this pickle. There are only 12k odd people in the RCL in total let alone those with HGV licences or training.

Where’s “here”, Tufty?

Everything was fine in comparison to ops over dramatic post @KrisAkabusi , yes no diesel in one petrol station I experienced so what do suggest I tell everyone no diesel we panic and say we need the army ? Really !

Everyone at work today, no issue with traffic. Queues at fuel stations. I have a quarter of a tank and hoping this will last me until the nonsense is over. DH smug in his electric car.

@mpsw

Well how many tanker drivers do you think the army has

Several hundred. For fully qualified fuel handling.

They’re not all here in the U.K. at once, let alone all ready and waiting to jump in their wagons to attend to this crisis.

The Army isn't there to save us from people stockpiling petrol or bog roll or anything else. They certainly are not there to plug gaps in workforce the government have created.

I would not want my child or any staff walking in the dark for 3 miles to get to school.

Berkshire. Traffic is normally pretty backed up though to be fair!

Jesus. That actually sounds rather frightening. Yes rice instead of toast. Terrifying.

I remember going into a supermarket during the first lot of selfish fucker panic buying. People were coming our saying there was no food. I went in and there was loads of fruit and veg as soon as you walked in. It turned out there was food, it just wasn't what people usually had which they translated into there being no food to eat at all. Don't get me wrong there were shortages, but you could still feed your family. You just had to adapt and try some new things.

I’ve now got twenty gallons of Tesco’s finest in my car.

Panic over. As you were.