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?

@Mamamia7962 - construction industry ...
It should be up to state to protect the rights of workers and set rules which do not allow for exploitation.
If this happened, it wasn't because of the immigrants, it was because the developers and bosses of construction companies were allowed to exploit the workers. It didn't break the construction industry though, it benefited from an influx of skilled workers who were many times overqualified for the job they were doing.
Funny enough, nobody is fighting to take those jobs now, where are all those young people willing to take any job they can to avoid unemployment?

How ridiculous. Went to Costco quest behind one car and hit petrol. Passed several petrol stations no queue. Scaremongering at its best.

All four petrol stations near me in West London were all out of petrol and closed off with traffic cones on my drive home from work today.

I wouldn't be walking 6 miles to work and then home again 😂 sorry, especially in the winter dark morning and nights in the pouring rain as a female on my own with bad anxiety .. i love walking so its not laziness....and wouldn't expect to have to walk 4 miles with a young child to take them to school and collect them again either on top of walking to a job afterwards

@threatmatrix

How ridiculous. Went to Costco quest behind one car and hit petrol. Passed several petrol stations no queue. Scaremongering at its best.

I tried three tonight and nothing. I haven't been able to get petrol since this kicked off.

Yes the panic buying has exacerbated it but anyone denying that this shitshow hasn't been caused by our absolute incompetent government is a complete fool.

The two garages in our small town (south east) were closed on my way to work this morning, both open with small queues when I drove past on the way back this evening. I didn’t stop as have enough for the weekend, will need to get some then.

@antoniawhite

The NE seems to have been spared for some reason.

Closer to the Oil Refineries probably!

@threatmatrix

How ridiculous. Went to Costco quest behind one car and hit petrol. Passed several petrol stations no queue. Scaremongering at its best.

That is just such an ignorant and idiotic comment. Literally pages and pages of people reporting no ability to buy fuel . Empty shelves . Yet because YOU happen not to have experienced it yet . 'It's scare mongering' FFS STOP BEING SO SELF ABSORBED !!!

My mother needed to go to Southampton for chemotherapy this morning. I needed to take her. Only I couldn't because despite trying all weekend all I could get was £30 after a 2 hour wait. The round trip to her house then the hospital is nearly £150 miles.
She couldn't go .. because when we called to see if there was any patient transport - there was none . They had had to cancel some pre booked trips as the PTS had to ration fuel to the highest priority .

Your post is shocking in its lack of empathy to large parts of the country in dire straits.

Quite marked variety in availability. I ventured out today to buy fuel due to a work related drive tomorrow, 200 mi round trip. I had no idea if it would be hours, but I assumed so. I drove 10 min to nearest superstore, passing one with no fuel. Queued for 10 min. Got £60 worth of diesel.
But I take it not everyone is having this sort of experience?

Chatting to a member of staff finishing their shift at my local big Tesco store today, from next week they are planning to start checking drivers fuel gauges in their cars and only letting them buy if they are well below half a tank and limiting fuel purchases to a maximum of £30. Not sure how doable that will be.
I haven’t panic bought at all but was/am hoping that the current madness will have died down by next week.🙄 Keeping my fingers🤞

@Tomasinabombadil I do not envy the poor minimum wage staff members who have to do that one little bit.

I had 35 miles left in my car yesterday, I didn’t fill up over the weekend decided to just stay at home and wait for it to blow over. I had to drive to 5 different petrol stations before I found one with diesel, managed to pump 50p worth and it ran out! At this point I had zero miles after all the queuing and driving. I was at a services, managed to pull into the car park and then was completely stuck! I tried to ring a taxi (had my baby and sister in the car) - no taxi due to petrol shortages. We rang a family friend who was able to pick us up. My sister and I went home and waited for when one of the stations told us the next delivery would be. We got there and they had run out of Jerry cans (obviously I needed one to get some fuel for my car!!) so had to drive to supermarket And get one and then rejoin the queue. I finally managed to get some and get back to my car today. I now have 30 miles - only filled one Jerry can as I didn’t want to look like I was stockpiling! I have been to five petrol stations today and they are all closed with no fuel. I’m too scared to try and go back out and look for fuel while it’s still so bad in case I break down again. So I won’t be able to take my baby out or do my food shop tomorrow. I do think it’s depends on where you are, but here (midlands) it seems to be really bad. Everyone gets told not to panic buy but all my friends who went and queued on Friday now have enough petrol to get through and I can’t go out until things calm down!

Yeah London has a massive shortage of buses and trains, so understandable that the teachers had no alternative means of transport to get into work.

bus travellers have not been able to get to work for two days here. Many buses are off the road because they don't have fuel. Those that are running are not stopping locally because they are already full by the time they get here,

I normally travel by bus. It is currently impossible

[quote Motorina]@Tomasinabombadil I do not envy the poor minimum wage staff members who have to do that one little bit.[/quote]
I was about to say that I really hope that companies don’t open their staff up to the kind of abuse that would bring. I think most people are accepting of a £30 limit. It keeps most people going, and if you need more you can rejoin the queue. But a staff member actually looking at a fuel gauge and saying no to an individual? Too much risk of abuse. Especially if it’s not clear that will be the rule and you’ve already queued for some of the time… and you can’t, for safety reasons, send a staff member don’t to the end of the queue that’s stacking up on a public highway to do the check. Tbh, I don’t think companies would even talk about doing this - sounds more like a staff member airing their ideas- or maybe their supervisor’s idea, but not decision maker’s.

And, apparently, the Tories would still win another general election - which confirms how stupid British people are.

What’s the option? Labour under Starmer are entirely unable to come up with a coherent explanation of any of their alternatives, including the one about biological sex becoming non existent at men’s, but not women’s, convenience.

There are five petrol stations within a five mile radius of my house, of which one had one pump working this afternoon. None had had any since Sunday. There were beeping horns, people filling cans, a man shouting at the lady enforcing the £30 rule and I was called a stupid bitch because I was waiting for the car in front to move.

This was after DD had chosen to walk 4 miles to school (and potentially back as she didn't know if I'd be able to get any fuel), because she knew it was either a lift to school or a lift to her activities tonight, if I couldn't get fuel today.

Where are you? It's nothing like that here, I think most the problems are localised and being exaggerated now. Diesel for buses was prioritised too and didn't run out

Plenty of food, petrol and kids at school on time here in the north ....... Sounds like lack of forward planning, powdered milk, long life milk, condensed milk evaporated milk & oat milk..... And have you all never heard of car sharing or getting the bus..... Not really necessary to call in the forces and spoil their day is it!

@gogohm

Where are you? It's nothing like that here, I think most the problems are localised and being exaggerated now. Diesel for buses was prioritised too and didn't run out

Buses don't use public fuel stations. You ever seen a bus in one?

@antoniawhite and west, petrol was refilled overnight Saturday - refineries in s Wales I suppose. Services never ran out nor did bp (bloody pricey!)

@threatmatrix

How ridiculous. Went to Costco quest behind one car and hit petrol. Passed several petrol stations no queue. Scaremongering at its best.

Wait so do you think everyone who has shared their first hand experience of shortages on this thread is just making it up? Just because you haven't personally seen it in your area?

@XenoBitch exactly. Some here are claiming the buses have no diesel whereas our mayor and mp both claimed it was pure scaremongering and no buses were affected as their pumps (at the depots) were prioritised.

West London
Car was running on fumes. Mum is sick and lives a 40 min drive away. I work. Stopped at supermarket to get some food to take round tomorrow. No eggs. No fruit juice. No bread. No bottled water. No pasta. No apples. No kitchen roll. No bleach. Only mild cheddar. None of this is life threatening but it is inconvenient and frustrating and frankly not what people voted for or expect (not that I voted for either brexit or the conservatives but you see my point.) I then queued fir 60 mins at the only petrol station in the locale to have any petrol and got in just before they closed it again as they had one delivery 3 hours ago and had sold out. Limited to £30.

Obviously we will all struggle through but this is ridiculous and I absolutely blame the government.

Hugo Rifkind today in the Times:

"We shouldn’t mention Brexit in the context of haulage, I know, because a campaign predicated on getting rid of European workers is, of course, in no way connected to our current shortage of European workers, which the government reckons it can fix by bringing in more European workers. God, how mad would you have to be to think that? Shame on you."

Errrr they are