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?

@Bluntness100

We don’t need the army, we just need the absolute twats panicking to stop.

I completely agree. People are blaming the media. Well yes the media shouldn’t have said anything but the only people panic buying are twats.

bizboz - They would have problems if everyone decided to go and fill up their cars on the same day.

No fuel at all in my town. Traffic problems. So sick of our fkn government.

I'm in the Midlands, most petrol stations have no fuel, the one that has has a queue a mile long. It's all well and good telling people not to panic buy but cars don't run on fresh air.

Supermarkets are definitely also in short supply.

I've just come back from France and can report that there are no problems either in Supermarkets or in Petrol Stations.

The denial that Brexit is part of the problem here is astonishing.

Why are no other European countries having supply issues (including supermarkets, not just fuel)?

Yeah, and why did this scenario (or one extremely close to it) feature in the government’s own Brexit risk planning?

Nothing to do with Brexit though. Oh no.

*Talking of milk... they could drive the milk tankers while the more expert milk tanker drivers are redeployed to drive fuel tankers. They could take the place of other HGV drivers with previous tanker driving experience so they can drive tankers instead.

They could manhandle the Insulate Britain numbskulls off the roads and free up the police for more important matters, like solving murders.

They could stand outside petrol stations and turn away anyone who still has more than half a tank of fuel.*

OMFG!

There are shortages of HGV drivers across Europe and in the US. People wanting to take drivers from these countries where they’re also needed isn’t a great look. Maybe one of the reasons for the shortages is because HGV drivers are treated like shit in all these countries.

Having all their rest stops closed during the lockdowns probably didn’t help with retaining drivers, not being able to get a doctor’s appointment for medicals so they can’t renew their licences and the DVLA sitting on thousands of new licences because they’re all having a nice inefficient time working from home are a few of the reasons for lack of drivers.

There's special training to drive tankers full of flammable fuel. Not every HGV driver can do this.

DS is in Army & can drive smaller trucks & tanks. He isn't qualified to drive a tanker full of diesel.

@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.

It doesn't help when papers like the Times say on their front page that 90% of garages are dry, and ten when you actually read it, it says 90% of independent garages represented by one trade organisation. So not the main retailers or supermarkets. But people will see the 90% and panic. Also, bit irritated by the woman quoted that she couldn't get to hospital for her treatment due to lack of fuel because of all the others who 'obviously' don't need it as much. Jeremy Vine said the same 'obviously don't need it'.. How can you possibly know?

It’s getting pretty dicey out there and something needs to be done definitely.

At least the military could have been deployed to assist the petrol station staff getting abuse or control traffic.

I couldn’t believe it this morning, small town, at least a mile long queue for the petrol pump and cars wanting to turn into the road it’s on bringing the opposite side of the road to a complete standstill as well as obviously no one would let them in. I was stuck there for 20 minutes, everyone hooting their horns. Some muppet came down on the wrong side of the road to jump the traffic past the petrol station smashing into a car turning out of the road. Driver jumped out shouting ‘you fucking cunt’ and tried to run down the road after the other driver.

Long queues everywhere all day all over my town. All the petrol stations I went past (4) this afternoon closed as they’d run out.

It just shows how society can break down so quickly. Pretty scary actually.

I thought it might be over by today, considering all the queues over the weekend, that people will have already filled up.

Q: Where is the Army?

A: They're filling up their tanks.

Get it?

It's ok to give your cat dog food for a short time but not long term. It is formulated differently to include the nutrients that cats need as,unlike dogs,they are obligate carnivores,which means they can't go more than a few days without taurine.

@QueenoftheKarens, yes there is a shortage across Europe. It’s less marked than here though and therefore not causing any problems.

"What are the army going to do?"

Give @Anxietyandwine kids a piggy back to school?

No problems here near Lincoln?
Maybe just more twats live near you

What a massive overreaction. Our local petrol station was open today, no issues, very small queue. I had a full ASDA shop delivered on Saturday, one substitution for cereal 🙄 Threads like this just fuel the ridiculous behaviour.

This thread just reminded me of something I heard on LBC last night. A fuel tanker driver was saying that he couldn't get to the depot,as he couldn't get any petrol for his motorbike in order to drive the 20 miles to work. You couldn't make it up.

Zeal - 😁😁

I take it my local Tesco pump may have reopened again. I live literally 5 minutes walk away and I can hear constant car horns, same as all weekend. They’re not going to get in any quicker are they!

The army are unlikely to have many of the kind of licences you need to transport fuel, possibly they are quickly trying to get some soldiers their fuel transport licences.

They can’t just hop into fuel tankers and drive it isn’t legal.

Of course Boris’ merry band of morons have never shown much interest in facts or laws they probably just think that of course Btisih soldiers can be swapped in for missing European tanker drivers.

I’m in Leeds and it’s nothing like that here.

Nor in the next county at my parents.

@Zeal 👏 love it

True, not every military driver has the full qualifications for hazardous loads/fuel.

But the RLC has hundreds.

Send in the army 😂 Yes, YABU.