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?

@bizboz

I don't like the blaming the public attitude - standard Tory government tactic. Panic buying isn't helping but it is understandable in the circumstances and there is a definite supply/delivery issue.

Exactly. It’s the Conservative government’s fault for telling everyone to make sure there tanks stayed out of the red a week ago or whenever it was.

I dunno. Im not that keen on the army controlling our transport basically.
I would rather it was sorted out by the various petrol companies

@rwalker

I'm in the northwest nothing like you describe few empty shelves couple of petrol stations shut most open with fuel and £30 limit.

As for shortage of hgv drivers if anyone past there test late 90's they can drive a 7.5 tonne lorry on there car licence the want to see if they can utilise them

From what I'm hearing the problem is worst in the SE (irony being there is much better public transport).

That said I'm in the NW. There is no fuel near me. A petrol station which always had petrol through the last two crisis doesn't currently have any. It ran out on Friday night. It was refilled 6am Sat. It was empty by Sat evening.

Brilliantly the supermarket near me is fully stocked... because to access it you need to drive through a side road and roundabout that it shares with a petrol station, which offers the only way in to both if you're coming by car.

I'm really unimpressed by gov't inaction on this.

Perhaps it’s all a stealth covid circuit breaker.
I wonder how your school worked out their walking distances. THe LA only expects kids to walk 3 miles (along a safe route) when calculating free transport

@PegorySpeck

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.

Well, I only fill up if I'm passing a petrol station, I won't go out of my way to fill up. And I live in a village with no petrol station on the way to many places.

Last Sunday I spotted I was a bit low but I was tired so didn't stop. I didn't then go out again until Friday (I mean, I went out, but I walked) and had forgotten I was low on fuel.

Friday I went swimming but that's only about three miles away so that wasn't an issue and I was due to go out that evening and there was a petrol station on the way.
Then, I got caught in roadworks on the way out which were exacerbated by a "breakdown" in the middle of them.
I'd not really seen anything about fuel problems.

The traffic the the roadworks was also heavy as people were queuing for the fuel station, which I didn't realise.
My petrol light came on while I was in the roadworks. I had enough fuel to get where I was going, and probably back, as long as nothing went wrong.
But I couldn't get fuel as they were sold out. So I went on to the event, hoping someone could give me a lift home if necessary (it was, my remaining miles by then were lower than the distance I had to go).

As it was, someone agreed to follow me to the petrol station where we queued for half an hour at midnight, and I got filled up.

Usually, being a bit low on fuel isn't an issue as I know where I'm due to be going and I know where the local petrol stations are. So, no, it's not chaotic or disorganised at all.
It was just a perfect storm.

I'm never short of food though!

It’s the Conservative government’s fault for telling everyone to make sure there tanks stayed out of the red a week ago or whenever it was.

That wasn't the conservative party. It was a rep of the petrol retailers association. Its their general policy too, not a crisis point - they say you should NEVER go below 1/4 tank to avoid being caught out by situations like this.

Shelves are full up here (Edinburgh).

@Kendodd

Please stop blaming Brexit

It's down to covid as well. DVLA need to get their arses into gear and fast!

The cries of 'it's not Brexit' are starting to sound a bit hysterical now.

This made me laugh, but it’s true. It just sounds ridiculous when you compare us to the rest of Europe including Northern Ireland.

It's brexit's biggest supporters who suddenly don't want to talk about it any more. That tells you all you need to know!

@PegorySpeck

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.

because the shops have been short of these things for weeks, not just today!

Some people don’t have the finances to ensure their cupboards are stocked and their cars filled. Be glad you haven’t experienced what it’s like to have to live hand to mouth.

I have family in Spain and they have just called me to ask about this - they have seen images on punch-ups at fuel stations over lack of petrol. I thought it was a joke as I haven't seen anything like that on British media - but they were concerned.

Nothing like that on my area but today there was no fuel to be had within 10 miles.

I was feeling confident that this would blow over by Wednesday as everyone and their dog would have a full tank by then. But I heard today that 50% of petrol stations are empty on the news. It's getting harder not to feel twitchy now and dubious that there is no crisis.

I was on the M25 today and pulled in to no queue and when I pulled out 30 minutes later it was backed up queueing.

I'm not really sure what to believe any more

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.

By the time you get to the point of saying 'bring the army in' the government has already failed spectactularly.

absolutely

This is amazing! I love that so many people believe the army (and why them over other forces?) Are all secret HGV drivers! I'm from a military family and not a one can drive a tanker! In fact my brothers army, he can't drive a car let alone deliver fuel. His role is as an accountant. He's definitely not the guy you want to "bring in" right now.

Normally when you hear cries of "bring in the army" it's from absolute pillocks advocating for martial law. Just mind blowing that this is what some are calling for after a few days of queues at petrol pumps.

Just excellent!

@Stormsy

Small queues here, certainly not chaos to the point of having to walk for miles, I notice you haven't shared where you are?

Council policies give a limit of 3 miles for walking for secondary schools. Over that they should provide transport anyway. Are you saying there's no school transport either?

I'm South coast, no, school transport was not all running today. Some of it was

I'm sitting in a queue for petrol now (South East) as I'm on emergency. Maximum fill limit it £35 and this is the fifth petrol station I've driven to as all others near me are out of fuel. Very worried about an upcoming wedding trip this weekend which is an eight hour round trip.

We don’t need the army. We need people to calm the fuck down, stop being twats and have them stop inconveniencing other people for their OWN convenience.

My partner was filling up his car earlier (yes, he did actually need to fuel up) and someone was filling up 3 Jerry cans. 3!!!! There’s just no fucking need.

Last year lots of MN wanted the army on the street to stop people going out twice a day/buying non essentials/going further than a mile from their house etc etc.
They were (I think) involved in the first roll out of the vaccine.
Now they are being called upon to "deal with" the petrol situation.
I can't imagine there are thousands of them sitting around doing nothing waiting for MN to suggest a suitable task!

Using the words crisis and panic (which the government and the media have) just fans the flames. If you say "no need to panic" you're inferring that someone is panicking.(or that there is reason to panic) Its like if you say "close your eyes don't look" the first thing you'll want to do is open your eyes to see what the person is doing!!

@Orangejuicemarathoner

By the time you get to the point of saying 'bring the army in' the government has already failed spectactularly.

absolutely

For this crisis, you have two previous fuel panic incidents, a known driver shortage which wasn't acknowledged early enough (should have been obvious at christmas with driver crisis then but was warned about loads earlier with the referendum), the on going DVLA issues which have been since last summer should have set alarm bells ringing and lack of communication between government and business on key infrastructive issues at a key moment when home working came to an end.

Thats at least 3 or 4 clear opportunities for civil contigency planning to kick in.

You also have the lack of deciding to train army personnel in case of emergency, to drive and unload fuel trucks, which given the two previous occasions its been a problem should have been seriously considered.

@Oldnews well presumably people are talking about those whose trade it is in the RLC and not the AGC, like you brother.

I don't think people are expecting those that can't drive to suddenly drive tankers?!

I'm really sorry, I truly am, to hear and read what is going on in England (I'm not sure if this situation is limited to it or if Wales and Scotland are also affected), but to those who keep saying this had nothing to do with Brexit, please open your eyes, nowhere else in continental Europe has been seeing empty shelves or closed pubs and restaurants for weeks now. And while there is certainly an element of hysteria in the current fuel crisis, it's also probably due to the previous distribution problems. Here the biggest news are the results of the German elections and the volcano in the Canary Islands, not empty shelves or queues for petrol. It's a uniquely English (or British) problem.

Typical boomers

Typical bloody ageism.