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?

No food or fuel shortages in Spain either.

[quote Peaseblossum22]@Marguerite2000 unless it’s a government directive many employers won’t allow people to work from home[/quote]
Exactly, my firm won't do a thing for the workers good unless enforced

I have read comments elsewhere blaming young people for not wanting to learn to be an HGV driver. But talking to the young adults I know, they all think this a crazy career choice as trucks will become automated. They say why would I choose a job that is not going to exist in the near future?
And they have a good point. I often see on MN people saying you should choose a career path that looks good for the future.

@Peaseblossum22

Just taken my dh into the station ( 4 miles no bus until 10.00am) drive past the three local patrol stations , still no fuel . That means there’s been no fuel in the town since Saturday morning , may be some at the local Tesco’s but that’s another 4 miles again so an extra & miles in total and didn’t want to waste the fuel .

I live a minute walk from a petrol station. It was out of fuel on Friday evening. It got refilled first thing Saturday, but it was all gone by lunchtime. So its very possible they have been refilled but gone very quickly. It was still empty this morning so DH left very early for work to see if he could get fuel at the next petrol station in the place over.

They did have some, and there were free pumps BUT people were still queing and blocking the road because the pumps were for the wrong side of their car.

DH drove up, and took the hose around the back of the car and filled from the wrong side rather than hold traffic up. Its less than ideal, but the alternative is worse (obstructing the road for emergency services / petrol refills / people running their fuel down in stationary traffic). He said he expected the whole area to be gridlocked within 20 mins, in part because people weren't prepared/dont know how to fill from the wrong side.

Its nuts.

they all think this a crazy career choice as trucks will become automated. They say why would I choose a job that is not going to exist in the near future

Same has been said about automated aircraft and there being no need for pilots “in the near future” for several decades, yet because the T&Cs, for pilots were (at least until the pandemic) vaguely attractive people would shell out to get the required qualifications.

@dementedma - I like it that whenever someone shows what other consider "too much attention" to their children (which can range from cooking a warm meal to bringing them to college by car and supply fresh duvets etc.), there's the pissing contest how some people trekked through Sahara with only a half bottle of fizzled out Sprite to get to their first year at the university.
I went to university on my own and moved countries with two suitcases, with my family only visiting me few years later as the circumstances didn't allow for anything else. It's not a badge of honour and I don't think an 18y old youngster is better or worse for it. There are families who want and can bring their children to university on their first day and there's nothing bad about it.
I don't get the competitive streak those posts seem to kick off.
For every post about a difficult birth, there's someone who gave birth while mucking the pig sty, cut the naval cord with a shard of glass, wrapped the newborn in their dirty apron and continued cleaning while the placenta was falling out of their vagina. For every story of a parent still cooking meals for their adult children, there's a child whose mother taught them as a toddler to cook a full Sunday roast and then moved them to a guest house when they were 6 to learn independence and they were happy about it.

How about live and let live? As long as the 18y old still wasn't in their nappies and expected their parents to clean their noses, there's a good chance even the one with duvets bought and delivered by their parents was actually a properly weaned and ready to start their independent life young person.

They just need to come out and tell people it's going to be x weeks disruption, people can then plan. Right now they got Boris saying it's improving, which is true in some cases but rubbish in most. And we all know that every time Boris comes out and promises something it's a pack of lies.

I live in a suburban are with 5-6 petrol stations within a mile to me, as soon as they fill up it's all gone, I cannot get to them because of the gridlock it's causing on the roads anyway.

The disruption would stop if people stopped queuing

But that’s difficult to change

@notimagain yes I have read that all the publicity for driverless cars and trucks is or and we are further away from it than the pr would lead us to believe. But it is a perception that matters. Why would they take out a loan to do HGV driver training unless they think it is a good investment?

[quote julieca]@notimagain yes I have read that all the publicity for driverless cars and trucks is or and we are further away from it than the pr would lead us to believe. But it is a perception that matters. Why would they take out a loan to do HGV driver training unless they think it is a good investment?[/quote]
You make a good point.

It is a downside of the heavy PR I hadn’t thought of it

@dementedma

I went off to uni on a train with a backpack and my stuff went in a trunk by courier. Mum couldnt drive so we didnt have a car, and she had my younger siblings to look after. It really wasnt a big deal.

No it isn’t a big deal at all

I don’t think anyone is saying it is

I remember taking my friend to uni 2 hours away and driving a van back up when she eventually left cos she’d accumulated so much stuff and a partner 😀

[quote julieca]@notimagain yes I have read that all the publicity for driverless cars and trucks is or and we are further away from it than the pr would lead us to believe. But it is a perception that matters. Why would they take out a loan to do HGV driver training unless they think it is a good investment?[/quote]
Going off at a tangent for a moment but looking at the parallels in my former occupation (flying) I’d say the automation acolytes have always been keen to claim autonomous operation was “just around the corner” and yet is still isn’t ….I suspect in driving it might be a possibility for road trains restricted to motorways/major routes but I think you’re going to need a human being on hand to drive into (and unload in) city centers and also when operating in unpredictable/rugged environments such as doing deliveries along narrow farm tracks etc for the foreseeable future…

Maybe HGV driving won’t be a career in 50 years time but for somebody considering it now there may well be a chance to amortize training costs and more, certainly more so of T&Cs we’re better.

I certainly wouldn’t be writing the job off because of claims automation is just around the corner.

Automation is a red herring.
You’d have to consider that if your investment was in buying a truck.
Not just in training and licensing, where the payback is much faster!

@notimagain if that is true, it would help recruitment for that message to be out there. I have a nephew who loves driving and would love this kind of job, but he honestly thinks driverless cars will happen in the next few years and we will all be getting packages delivered by drones in a few years anyway. I don't, but he is young and believes the pr.

@EerieSilence spot on and brilliant choice of words!

@EerieSilence wow. I wasnt trying to be competitive. Merely defending the poster whose dc went off to uni on the train, and who was then criticised.
I went on my own on a train. My dcs were taken in a car. It was entirely down to situation at the time and we all survived regardless. Dont get your knickers in a twist about it!

Automation is pie on the sky, not happening any time soon (decades)

BBC this morning reported that fuel sales at the pumps had gone up by 500% since the fuel crisis started. Perhaps that might give us a clue as to why there is no fuel at some petrol stations.

Maybe its because everyone is driving around with a full tank of petrol instead of being on less than 1/3rd full like they normally are. The media has caused this, people keep filling their tank in case they cant get any at a later date. Same with food, lots of full kitchen cupboards instead of half empty.

The advice by the Road Haulage Association was not to let your tank get below a quarter full. My car was below a quarter full so I filled it up on Friday evening. Normally I would have waited until sometime this week to fill up. Probably when the red light came on. Lots of people acting like me are enough for the pumps to run dry.

Because I never joined a queue and wasted those precious moments of my life. I needed fuel yesterday so went to Costco and queued behind a long line of ‘one’ car in front of me. There was NO shortage of fuel at any time.

@threatmatrix there are major shortages where I live. I thought it would be all over by now, I was wrong. Even the service stations on the motorway nearby were out of fuel last night in both directions.

We haven’t queued either but we have changed our behaviour , ds has no fuel at all his car is on the yellow light so he has been allowed to work at home, dh has gone on the train and I drove him there so that we are only using one car. But I am starting to get worried , I am taking my mother away for a week soon back to her home ( she moved to live here in 2019) , it is all that has kept her going in the last few months she will be devastated if we can’t go. My father ( they are divorced) is seriously ill and I am desperate to see him but without fuel it’s difficult and he is extremely vulnerable so I need to isolate before I see him and I don’t want to use public transport if I can avoid it.

This whole situation was avoidable , this country lurches from one crisis to the next , it’s entirely reactive not proactive . It’s about everyone wanting something for nothing and a total absence of strategy and planning.

We elect a government to govern, 90% of government is boring admin it’s not flash statements. This crisis is not entirely the governments fault it’s also down to a the HGV industry but it’s up to government to provide a stable and consistent structure and framework for business to operate in and not just keep washing their hands of it because it’s ‘boring’

Because of panic buying nothing else.

This crisis is not entirely the governments fault it’s also down to a the HGV industry

There's more to it than that. The general population should shoulder their share the blame.

Without panic buying there wouldn't be a crisis.