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Just heard from a friend who was charged £90 by a hire car company because she returned it to the airport without filling it up. It didn't matter that the car was full of kids & suitcases and there weren't any petrol stations open nearby, rules is rules.
Just heard from a friend who was charged £90 by a hire car company because she returned it to the airport without filling it up. It didn't matter that the car was full of kids & suitcases and there weren't any petrol stations open nearby, rules is rules.
[Post edited 27 Sep 2021 16:36]
I mean, it is literally the contract you sign, not sure it being inconvenient trumps that?
What happens when a mum with a load of kids and suitcases are stuck at the airport cos someone didn't fill it up?
Wonder if the government could put the army in on petrol distribution, tell the likes of mega rich BP they’ll be paying the army £200 an hour per head until they pay enough to employ proper staff, whether then the oil companies might get their act together.
Too many companies getting wealthy on cheap EU labour this century, time for a shake up.
Today I spoke to a mate who’s a high up in the army. He said very few of their HGV drivers are qualified to take hazardous fluids and the ones that are would need extra training to work forecourt pumps. If the government had given the military notice when they were first warned this fuel crisis would happen back in June it may have been possible to make a difference but with this short notice it would be just a publicity stunt as they don’t have enough numbers.
But it wasn't news. It was a few forecourts out of some 8,000 in the UK.
If it was not 'reported' nothing would have happened and you wouldn't have thousands of cars sitting idle at home with full tanks but loads of people, like a friend of mine who is trying to move home with a rental van, absolutely fukked.
I'm sure stock of all sorts of stuff ebbs & flows all the time, that's just how it goes. It doesn't need to be 'reported' on in every minute detail.
That is news and in the public interest to be reported and it's up to good journalists to find this kind of stuff and out and try and get to the bottom of why it is happening rather than keep quiet about it. We're seeing food shortages in supermarkets, went to the pub before the Everton game iN Westwood and they have virtually no beer on tap anymore due to supply issues, nandos having to shut branches due to lack of delivery, this is all stuff that has to be reported rather than swept under the rug
The result of that shouldn't be that people lose their minds and fill up cars, jerry cans and whatever else with petrol as if the world is about to end.
Today I spoke to a mate who’s a high up in the army. He said very few of their HGV drivers are qualified to take hazardous fluids and the ones that are would need extra training to work forecourt pumps. If the government had given the military notice when they were first warned this fuel crisis would happen back in June it may have been possible to make a difference but with this short notice it would be just a publicity stunt as they don’t have enough numbers.
[Post edited 27 Sep 2021 16:54]
You say the government were warned back in June that a fuel crisis would happen. Do you have any links to this as I genuinely don't recall seeing any.
Like most supply chain operations these days everything is done on an in/out (ooh err) basis so deliveries to forecourts etc are done based on the known weekly demand that will have been assessed over many months/years to keep it ticking over.
One news report of a few forecourts running out and the minute everyone panics and buys it becomes a crisis but it's only a crisis because idiots have gone in their tens of thousands to fill up their cars that are already 1/2 - 3/4 full.
That is news and in the public interest to be reported and it's up to good journalists to find this kind of stuff and out and try and get to the bottom of why it is happening rather than keep quiet about it. We're seeing food shortages in supermarkets, went to the pub before the Everton game iN Westwood and they have virtually no beer on tap anymore due to supply issues, nandos having to shut branches due to lack of delivery, this is all stuff that has to be reported rather than swept under the rug
The result of that shouldn't be that people lose their minds and fill up cars, jerry cans and whatever else with petrol as if the world is about to end.
Totally agree about the need to question the authorities about things like this, even though it clearly states in the report it was a handful of sites and that Morrisons were not seeing any issues at the moment which doesn't seem enough to be worthy of mass panic, but the last sentence is the nub of the problem..... the public cannot be trusted to not over-react so there lies the quandary.
A Conservative government telling companies they need to pay their employees more? I think you'll be waiting a long time for that.
You really are a bit of a socialist on the sly.
To be fair to the government that is actually what they have said.
Sadly they are beginning to buckle regards EU visas because the avocado munching middle classes are seething that their selection of choice is not always on the shelf given the shortage of drivers.
If anything the government should stay brave and stick to their line of pay better wages and you will fill these jobs with British workers.
I see youngsters on £60k a year and they still can’t afford their own place. God help the masses surviving on far less.
Just watching the London news on ITV, and the headline was about ‘the capital’s dwindling fuel supplies’. Then in the next breath, they report that the government has said there’s no shortage.
The media really are a bunch of scaremongering shìtcùnts.
Just watching the London news on ITV, and the headline was about ‘the capital’s dwindling fuel supplies’. Then in the next breath, they report that the government has said there’s no shortage.
The media really are a bunch of scaremongering shìtcùnts.
Those two statements aren't contradictory as the second one quotes the Government, whose track record for telling the truth is open to some, ahem, question.
There is clearly no shortage of fuel out there but there is a shortage of availability at the pumps for which the Government is at least partly responsible.
Add in all the selfish imbeciles with cars in England and you have a crisis.
I also hear “shortage of food” banded around a lot. I have had no problem at all the last 18 months apart from those first couple of weeks when everyone went looney tunes.
Having ‘only’ 5 different types of gherkins instead of the usual 10 then repeat for multiple other items, therefore making the shelf look empty is not a food shortage. Sorry if people have to have normal gherkins rather than their preferred spicy pulled beef variety.
Just watching the London news on ITV, and the headline was about ‘the capital’s dwindling fuel supplies’. Then in the next breath, they report that the government has said there’s no shortage.
The media really are a bunch of scaremongering shìtcùnts.
How dare they report on whats happening.
There is dwindling supplies as idiots are going out and buying it all. that's not scaremongers thats reporting what is happening whilst offering the governments alternative point of view to bring balance
To be fair to the government that is actually what they have said.
Sadly they are beginning to buckle regards EU visas because the avocado munching middle classes are seething that their selection of choice is not always on the shelf given the shortage of drivers.
If anything the government should stay brave and stick to their line of pay better wages and you will fill these jobs with British workers.
I see youngsters on £60k a year and they still can’t afford their own place. God help the masses surviving on far less.
They were always going to buckle because that was the plan all along. We need skilled labour and we need to encourage people into the areas of employment we're short on, it's not going to happen as overnight. So as quick as you can say points base Australian style immigration system, they're going to need to hand out visas to cover the short fall. Nurses was always the indicator for this policy.
A lot of the increases in wages for people in the supply chain of fuel or food are going to be passed on to consumers (companies can't sacrifice profit after all) which will drive inflation, so their extra pay won't go as far. Inflation will also lead to interest increasing which won't help people looking to borrow to buy a house.
I think it would be better if the government made the jobs such a lorry driver more appealing by providing better facilities, offering subsidies for training and maybe changing regs so breaks are paid for etc.
Anyway whoever at BP leaked that memo certainly earned their bonus this year.
I also hear “shortage of food” banded around a lot. I have had no problem at all the last 18 months apart from those first couple of weeks when everyone went looney tunes.
Having ‘only’ 5 different types of gherkins instead of the usual 10 then repeat for multiple other items, therefore making the shelf look empty is not a food shortage. Sorry if people have to have normal gherkins rather than their preferred spicy pulled beef variety.
last 2 months the shelves at my local sainsburys have been a bit bare. Mostly things like ready meals and packaged foods they are not out of them but a lot less than they usually have.
There is dwindling supplies as idiots are going out and buying it all. that's not scaremongers thats reporting what is happening whilst offering the governments alternative point of view to bring balance
It was the media’s scaremongering that has caused this panic in the first place.
It was the media’s scaremongering that has caused this panic in the first place.
how do you work that out? BP leaked a memo saying they were short of drivers but it was only a temporary issue. This was rightly reported in the media then people lost their minds. All media reports have said all along there was no need to panic buy