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?

In the south east and filled both the cars up at Tesco and someone waas also filling up Jerry cans. No queues and no shortage. waited 2 minutes as always,

I’m in outer London and it does seem quite bad petrol availability wise. That said, I can get anywhere I need to with public transport!

I didn’t bother queuing for petrol or even going on Friday when it probably would have been fine.

This thread is utter bullshit

I’m in West Scotland. Filled up on Friday as normal but had a bit of a wait. A few pumps closed maybe which caused the queue. Ask Bank holiday for some here so more cars on road. Filled up today in Central Scotland after driving around all weekend and no queue at the Morrison’s garage. Can’t see any petrol issue here.

I think it's dependant on where you are. There's the odd thing missing her from supermarket shelves.
The Shell garage on the way to college was empty, they've put their prices upto £1.42.9 a litre of diesel. Asda had no queue and no shortage, their price of diesel is 132.9 and they've capped filling to £30 per customer and no Jerry cans.
We are in Bolton so lots of people travelling out of town for work. Buses are running as far as I could tell, lots of traffic on the roads because of the downpours of rain today.

@TheFairyCaravan

DS1 is a soldier. He’s done the floods, helped build the Nightingale hospitals, been to testing centres and helped out at the vaccination centres. He’s not got an HGV license like many others in the military so what exactly do you want him to do in the next 12 days before he flies off for 3 months?

Honestly I’m pig sick of all this “bring in the army” I’ve seen these past few days. How about saying “stop being a dick”?

Is you ds the only one in the Army then?

I'm not saying we need the army but when idiots are blocking the road, and lorry drivers are overtaking on bends to get past (almost causing fatal accidents) something does need to be done. Even if it's just stopping cars blocking the roads

East Anglia. I was meant to be going on holiday on saturday. I had enough diesel in the car for 150 miles, which wouldn't get me to my destination. Used 30 miles of it driving into town and then round every petrol station in town trying to get fuel - no joy.

Sunday, I drove 50 miles towards my destination, checking every single petrol station I past. None had any fuel. So I turned round and drove 50 miles home.

The car's sat on the drive on red. I have just (just!) enough to get to the local petrol station, but won't be able to get home without filling up. So I'm not risking it til things normalise.

I'm not going on holiday.

This was my first holiday this year that hasn't been pulled due to staff shortages - I'm NHS - so it would be fair to say it's been a pretty tearful few days.

This petrol nonsense will stop in a few days. It’s not like being able to hoard pasta and toilet rolls - once you’ve filled your petrol tank you’ve filled it, you can’t keep going back day after day. Also all of the fools filling up plastic bottles and cans need to realise that fuel actually goes off and will end up damaging their engines.

As an aside the states expertise in emergency planning for a whole range of things has been steadily eroded since the early 90s (both at a national and local level).

See it’s fine saying do not panic but when you go to the supermarket and the shelves are empty or the fuel pumps are dry and you actually need stuff then it’s a bit of a problem. In fact it’s a huge problem. How on earth will we fix this situation when the logistics chain is broken?! This is our reality now and to think over half the country voted for this just blows my mind.

That sucks, Motorina.

DH drove to London (student DD moving into new flat with all her stuff, but she missed induction session because the journey was so delayed). DH got fuel today near London. Lots of people were getting fuel, just very long waits.

@user89000005

Firstly, Op Escalin isn't just the "army". Secondly, there is no shortage of fuel or drivers, Op Escalin is there to stop fuel drivers from striking again, not to satisfy the idiotic impulses of the manipulated masses. It'll calm down in a couple days when people's tanks are full and they realise there is still fuel being delivered to the forecourt.

Exactly. All my local petrol stations are getting daily deliveries, which then runs out again after a few hours after all the panic buyers have visited. Eventually it will dawn on these morons they don’t need to keep queuing to top up their tank with £5 or £10 every day.

Well my military husband is currently processing Afghan refugees because that's still going on behind the scenes, and others are driving ambulances.

@Thewiseoneincognito

See it’s fine saying do not panic but when you go to the supermarket and the shelves are empty or the fuel pumps are dry and you actually need stuff then it’s a bit of a problem. In fact it’s a huge problem. How on earth will we fix this situation when the logistics chain is broken?! This is our reality now and to think over half the country voted for this just blows my mind.

Half the country voted for panic buying?

Petrol situation bad but there's no panic buying of food where I am

He might not be the only one in the Army but unfortunately at the moment it does seem to be the same few batteries or regiments getting dicked for everything, and again, this is before mine goes away for 9 months

To the posters saying that the problem doesn't exist,I was stuck in a mile long tail-back of traffic on the bus this evening, because there was a queue of about 100 cars waiting to get into the petrol station. Also,every shop I've been in today (Wilkinson's, Poundland, Asda) have numerous empty or near empty shelves. I could not get any black bin bags,small bottles of diet coke,or my usual loo rolls in any of these shops.

I get my cat food off Amazon if that's an option?

4 garages within 3/4miles of me. All had no diesel. One had unleaded

Driving to work I can pass another 3 garages. All had nothing

Then someone will say on local fb sains /Tesco/bp etc has a tanker and all pile there and madness queuing.

Our main road into /out of town was totally gridlocked due to cars queuing at side of road

I’m kent

My walk to work is an ‘easy’ 3 miles and I’m exhausted by the end of it. Will be doing it tomorrow to save petrol.

Don’t think I’d manage a 6 mile walk in one go 😟

A few comments about public transport in London - not all of London is the same.
Most of South East London doesn’t have the tube for a start.

Even in areas where you can get the tube it’s not much use if you’re a driving instructor, an amazon delivery driver, a builder, a plumber, a just eat driver or any of the other jobs that actually need you to have and be driving your vehicle.
Yes we have good bus services but agin I can’t see anyone agreeing to have their driving lesson as a passenger on the 208 bus.
What has become clear is that lots of people think if it’s not happening in their own front room then it’s not happening at all - very odd.

I love the posters screaming to stop blaming Brexit when clearly covid is the problem.

Only the rest of Europe had covid too, some worse than the UK, and we have none of these problems.

It’s Brexit and the racist voters who asked for it. At least you have a blue passport! Hurrah!!

@Cazzovuoi

I love the posters screaming to stop blaming Brexit when clearly covid is the problem.

Only the rest of Europe had covid too, some worse than the UK, and we have none of these problems.

It’s Brexit and the racist voters who asked for it. At least you have a blue passport! Hurrah!!

Says you. Meanwhile all the news reports state that Covid is the major cause of the driver shortage, and that there is also an HGV driver shortage in Europe.

Only difference being that Europe don’t have panic buyers.

I went down to my local Tesco on my way home at 9.15 for a nosey. No queues, but a big sign up saying “no diesel” and another saying “no super unleaded”. It looked like they still had normal petrol. My car’s a diesel - DH had asked me to check as although we have three quarters of a tank just now, he needs to travel into work every day next week, and it’s a 20 min car journey or a good hour and a half by bus. I’m near Edinburgh.