Pumps run dry at gas stations in Britain • Hacker News Board

Re: Pumps run dry at gas stations in Britain

#171

Post by kwhitefoot » Mon, Sep 27, 2021, 3:52 PM UTC

bayesian_horse wrote: post #54

jack_riminton wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The official line is that there is a lack of truck drivers, which is mostly true because Brexit has prevented a lot of the foreign drivers from working

It's definitely true that they lack truckers. They don't just grow on trees, and when a few tens of thousands leave, well...

There are hundreds of thousands of people in the UK with HGV licenses but only half of them driving.

This problem has been brewing for decades as the jobs have been outsourced to low cost countries and the drivers mercilessly exploited. Now that some economies have improved and COVID has hit a lot of those drivers are either unavailable or simply unwilling to travel so far and so long in horrible working conditions for so little reward.

Society needs to recalibrate the value of workers who do manual work. There really is no good reason why the average software developer should be paid more than an HGV driver while enjoying much better working conditions.

See https://www.payscale.com/research/UK/Job=Software_Developer/..., https://www.payscale.com/research/UK/Job=Heavy_%2F_Tractor-T..., https://www.payscale.com/research/UK/Job=Delivery_Driver/Hou...

Re: Pumps run dry at gas stations in Britain

#172

Post by bellyfullofbac » Mon, Sep 27, 2021, 3:53 PM UTC

mschuster91 wrote: post #25

Well... looks like the UK are the next in line to discover that paying people in essential industries shit wages leads to said shit outcomes. Over many decades, employees in easy-to-learn and especially easy-to-outsource jobs were treated as disposable cogs, and now after Corona and other crisis crunches the whole house of cards comes crushing down.

Well, aren't we all in the West (if I may assume where you live) guilty of that? 55 inch TVs are $500 nowadays, mangoes flown from South America are less than $2 in my local supermarket, we like to fly to Thailand because vacationing is "dirt cheap" there...

Re: Pumps run dry at gas stations in Britain

#173

Post by timellis-smith » Mon, Sep 27, 2021, 3:53 PM UTC

ben_w wrote: post #147

timellis-smith wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's quite a claim. Do you have some strong evidence to back it up? The electoral commission went to great lengths and expense to find any wrong doing and came up with nothing. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/20... Edit: Rant alert: It really irks me that the people who call the Brexit election unfair, don't seem to acknowledge that Britain was never given any kind of referendum when joini…

Leave.EU Group Limited: https://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/who-we-are-and-what-w... Conclusion: Leave.EU was ultimately fined £66,000 in total after their appeal. Vote Leave Ltd: https://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/who-we-are-and-what-w... Conclusion: commission found evidence, issued fines, most significant fines appealed, commission lost appeal and paid costs. Investigation into payments made to Better for t…

I'm genuinely confused by this: In 2018, Grimes was fined £20,000 by the Electoral Commission after it determined that there was evidence that BeLeave had spent more than £675,000 with the Canadian political consultancy firm AggregateIQ in coordination with the official Brexit campaign organisation Vote Leave in distribution targeted social media advertisements.[24] The Commission argued that these actions violated electoral spending rules, and that Grimes and Vote Leave official David Alan Halsall had made false declarations relating to the spending. Grimes appealed, claiming that his misstatements were unintentional, and his fine was overturned;[25] Vote Leave, however, withdrew its appeal and paid fines totalling £61,000.[26] Subsequently, in May 2020, the Metropolitan Police ended its investigation into Grimes and Halsall.[27] In June 2021, the Chairman of the Electoral Commission apologised to Grimes in a Sunday Telegraph interview.[28]

They lost their appeal but the Chairman of the Electoral Commission aplogised, and the Met found nothing

Re: Pumps run dry at gas stations in Britain

#174

Post by sgt101 » Mon, Sep 27, 2021, 3:56 PM UTC

tialaramex wrote: post #145

chrononaut wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ..as I think most people are just filling up to the top instead of half way.. Perhaps I am missing something here, but are you referring to vehicles in this context? Is it not common to always fill your tank to the top?

No. It's a waste of money. Britain is a small country, you're not going to run out of fuel (ordinarily) on a trip and so it makes sense to keep the money in your pocket instead of turning it into fuel that's sat there doing nothing useful. Also, it's very common to buy round amounts of value e.g. £30 of petrol, periodically, rather than just fill it up for however much that costs, for some people this makes it easier…

Also if you fill it up you have to tow it around with you; an extra 40kgs of weight in the car which costs a bit.

The fill it up to the brim meme seems to come from emergency preparedness folks like the police and the army where no vehicle goes to the parking space overnight without being 100% as ready as it can be for tomorrow.

Re: Pumps run dry at gas stations in Britain

#175

Post by eynsham » Mon, Sep 27, 2021, 3:58 PM UTC

brightball wrote: post #64

bayesian_horse wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What would they need to do to convince you they don't intend to punish the UK? Would they try to force migrant workers to work in the UK, even against applicable UK law? Other EU politicians have been quite diplomatic and friendly during the whole thing. A lot unlike a certain Prime Minister from a former EU member I could name.

Just an observation. Ever since the announcement it seems like various groups on Reddit and elsewhere want to celebrate every difficulty that the UK experiences.

Every day I quake in my boots at the thought of the hideous revenge r/France will inflict upon us.

Re: Pumps run dry at gas stations in Britain

#176

Post by sgt101 » Mon, Sep 27, 2021, 3:58 PM UTC

josephcsible wrote: post #88

TomGullen wrote: post #17

Unlike the toilet paper panic buying there is limited capacity people can buy, so I would expect this to naturally end short term when people don’t have capacity to buy any more. What concerns me is government planning to address this looks a lot more forward looking than a few days/a week, so I can see it getting worse. Interesting how the government say it’s not a shortage, if the refineries were running low you wo…

> Unlike the toilet paper panic buying there is limited capacity people can buy, so I would expect this to naturally end short term when people don’t have capacity to buy any more. Didn't the Colonial Pipeline attack have people filling up plastic bags with gas?

the best one I heard of was the people using domestic wheel bins as attempted fuel depots.

Cue fire brigade level intervention!

Re: Pumps run dry at gas stations in Britain

#177

Post by Scarblac » Mon, Sep 27, 2021, 3:58 PM UTC

brightball wrote: post #64

bayesian_horse wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What would they need to do to convince you they don't intend to punish the UK? Would they try to force migrant workers to work in the UK, even against applicable UK law? Other EU politicians have been quite diplomatic and friendly during the whole thing. A lot unlike a certain Prime Minister from a former EU member I could name.

Just an observation. Ever since the announcement it seems like various groups on Reddit and elsewhere want to celebrate every difficulty that the UK experiences.

Yes, but there's no need for any punishment on top of what Brexit is.

Re: Pumps run dry at gas stations in Britain

#178

Post by sgt101 » Mon, Sep 27, 2021, 3:59 PM UTC

throwawayboise wrote: post #121

josephcsible wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Unlike the toilet paper panic buying there is limited capacity people can buy, so I would expect this to naturally end short term when people don’t have capacity to buy any more. Didn't the Colonial Pipeline attack have people filling up plastic bags with gas?

Have you ever tried doing that? It works for about 5 minutes until the bag disolves.

errm, no - I am concerned to note that you obviously have.

Re: Pumps run dry at gas stations in Britain

#179

Post by JetSetWilly » Mon, Sep 27, 2021, 3:59 PM UTC

bayesian_horse wrote: post #156

nicoburns wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's UK remainers pointing out the difficulties. Which is somewhat understandable considering: - Their political opponents have spent months dismissing their concerns as scaremongering. - Many would still like us to rejoin the EU at some point. So it makes sense to point out the advantages of doing so.

The UK will rejoin at some point, especially because the younger generation will demand it, but it will have to take a decade, more likely two, unless Brexit proves to be an uncontroversial disaster and GB falls behind extremely. I wouldn't wish that on anybody. There is just too much national pride around this move, and the British political system is so thoroughly messed up that it will take one or two leadership g…

> The UK will rejoin at some point, especially because the younger generation will demand it, but it will have to take a decade, more likely two, unless Brexit proves to be an uncontroversial disaster and GB falls behind extremely. I wouldn't wish that on anybody.

It seems unlikely. I would say it is more likely that being outside the EU leads to more euroscepticism among the young. Perceiving the sharp end of EU incompetence - triggering article 16 without even informing Ireland - or malice, such as seizing vaccines and the whole propagandistic negative portrayal of the UK during the vaccine rollout in the EU - has already led many a former remainer to think that the EU is not the most fantastic of institutions.

It is certainly true that there are many in the EU keen to paint every minor event as some sort of disaster for the UK. They will gladly ignore the wider context of the pandemic, of driver shortages in the EU as well, of this being a purely manufactured demand-side panic buy "shortage" - to gleefully jump up and down shouting about the UK being self harming and it is all 100% brexit. It really comes across as deceitful propaganda I am afraid - and people take note and the EU loses its shine bit by bit.

Re: Pumps run dry at gas stations in Britain

#180

Post by plutonorm » Mon, Sep 27, 2021, 3:59 PM UTC

Seems strange that this has nothing at all to do with the rapidly rising prices of petrol in the UK. Russia has been reducing the flow of petrol into Europe due to conflict over a new pipeline. The UK has a had a terrible windy season, meaning more demand for fossil fuels. And economic recovery after the pandemic, all these things have pushed prices really high.

This shortage of drivers thing is likely a convenient side story to distract from the fundamental issue of high prices.

https://www.theguardian.com/money/2021/aug/04/uk-petrol-pric...