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Pumps run dry at gas stations in Britain

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Re: Pumps run dry at gas stations in Britain

#251

Post by WaltPurvis »

dan-robertson wrote: post #242
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?

I’ve seen some people keep the tank only partially full because it improves performance (the car will be more efficient if it is lighter and might eg handle better too, especially if it is a small car) though I don’t really buy that argument. But if you supposed that everyone drove normally until their tank was 1/8 full then refuelled to the top, the average tank would be 7/16 full so if lots of people refuel all at…

That argument seems ridiculous. Gasoline weighs 6.3 pounds per gallon and most cars have 15-20 gallon tanks, so if you keep your tank around half-full your car will be lighter by maybe 50 or 60 pounds. Any performance improvement from that would be imperceptibly small.

Re: Pumps run dry at gas stations in Britain

#252

Post by hogFeast »

bayesian_horse wrote: post #128
timellis-smith wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can't comment on the child of the post for some reason. Here is another source: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2021/09/24/dont-blame-b... Somehow it seems on these forums that any left leaning publication is immediately trusted but any right leaning one immediately distrusted.

It's just that the shelves in the UK are empty, and in the other countries they aren't. Both in the UK and in the rest of the EU there already was a shortage of professional drivers. And the companies in the UK do seem to blame the VISA situation as a major contributing factor.

The shelves in the UK aren't empty. The press in Europe appears to be eagerly reporting this fact. Where I am, the supply of fresh food has improved significantly since the start of Covid. I don't know of anyone who has had problems buying food (if anyone did, there would be panic buying). There has been industrial action at some places, and some individual producers have driver shortages. It is not widespread at all (and btw, I live in rural area...we have had shortages before due to bad weather, but what is happening now isn't noticeable unless you are familiar with the grocery supply chain...this stuff is just being reported because it relates to Brexit, which journalists care about). It is fair to say there were probably problems due to Brexit for the supply of some fresh food...but that was months ago, and I didn't notice any disruption even then. And btw, if drivers were going to leave because of Brexit, they could have left between 2016-2020, the UK didn't ask anyone to leave, they all had the right to stay and work...most left in 2020, due to Covid, before we left. The timeline makes no sense.

The companies blame visa rules because they don't want to pay staff more. It is that simple (what people don't understand, even in the UK, these stories are all coming from a lobbying group of haulers...not drivers, the people who are having to pay staff more and are very angry about doing so, they just want the cheap labour back).

One of the companies that has had persistent shortages for months is a bread producer making £30m/year, they have 150 driver vacancies. I know someone who talked to a hiring manager there, they pay below market, they are experiencing massive attrition, when he asked what pay rises they were offering...2%, "the rise is satisfactory, workers should be happy"...meanwhile other firms are paying 10-30% raises, some HGV drivers are being retained on £50-60k salaries (this producer pays people £27k for multi-drop, starting at 2am, I believe it is mostly class 2 but their wages are a fantasy). Some firms in the UK have glutted themselves on cheap labour. They have no idea how to operate any other way (and btw, this bread producer is throwing away product every day because they don't have drivers, at no point have they tried to raise wages, they believe the low wage labour will return it seems).

Re: Pumps run dry at gas stations in Britain

#253

Post by spuz »

dan-robertson wrote: post #242
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?

I’ve seen some people keep the tank only partially full because it improves performance (the car will be more efficient if it is lighter and might eg handle better too, especially if it is a small car) though I don’t really buy that argument. But if you supposed that everyone drove normally until their tank was 1/8 full then refuelled to the top, the average tank would be 7/16 full so if lots of people refuel all at…

> But if you supposed that everyone drove normally until their tank was 1/8 full then refuelled to the top, the average tank would be 7/16 full so if lots of people refuel all at once that is 9/16 times a lot of fuel tanks.

Sorry, extremely minor nit-pick but I think the fractions go the other way. The average tank should be 9/16 full leading to 7/16 of a tank extra per person.

Re: Pumps run dry at gas stations in Britain

#254

Post by azalemeth »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #211
csomar wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Somebody should do the math of pulling out to the gas station vs. driving with a full tank.

With US engine sizes, fuel efficiency, and number of miles driven, I would guess it makes no difference for most people. Much fewer proportion of people are driving those peugots or other tiny cars where the weight of fuel would be material relative to the time it would take to fill up fuel more often. Another British thing that amazed me was their auto insurance prices were based on engine size, and they were fretti…

No normal person needs a 4l car. You just don't. Heck, 3l is huge and not required with modern engine sizes; between 1 and 2l is plenty for the vast majority of people who are not farmers routinely getting stuck in mud whilst towing heavy equipment.

In 2019, the average new petrol ("gas") car in the UK requires 5.7 l of fuel per 100 km (49.2 mpg) [1].

The corresponding figure for the US is ~9.44 l/100km (24.9 mpg [2,3]).

We really, really need to decarbonise our economy worldwide and in many ways this fuel scare may be the catalyst required, with UK autotrader saying it was driving people to e-car retailers [4].

[1] https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/energy-a...

[2] https://www.iea.org/reports/fuel-consumption-of-cars-and-van...

[3] https://www.epa.gov/automotive-trends/highlights-automotive-...

[4] https://www.theguardian.com/business/live/2021/sep/27/uk-pet...

Re: Pumps run dry at gas stations in Britain

#255

Post by mixmastamyk »

jedberg wrote: post #204
tialaramex wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Unless you value your time at 0, the amount of money you'll save by not carrying around the extra weight is less than the value of the time you'll spend filling up twice.

Yes, but time is not everyone's most precious asset.

Re: Pumps run dry at gas stations in Britain

#256

Post by vel0city »

jack_riminton wrote: post #43
thinkingemote wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People on the whole do not know what "panic buying" actually is. I've had multiple conversations which run along the line of "I'm not panic buying, I am rational. I'm only buying this because others are panicking and there wont be any left for me. "

My wife was the same during lockdown, I said there's no need to panic buy stuff we don't need. She told me she was just buying stuff so we could eat if the shelves went empty

> She told me she was just buying stuff so we could eat if the shelves went empty

In my opinion the best solution to this in uncertain times is to have a decent supply of shelf-stable foods and good recipes with them before things get crazy. I try and keep at least a couple weeks of food on hand with a decent supply of shelf-stable stuff that'll last a while in emergencies. Its not a bad idea to be familiar with recipes that use mostly dry and canned foods that may only require water and a hot pot to cook. Most of the time it means we slowly cycle though meh-level canned meals once a month to keep the canned foods fresh(er), but when grocery stores go empty or you don't feel safe to go outside its pretty nice. That said, there's plenty of nice recipes where you can substitute canned chicken, canned veggies, or evaporated milk without taking too much of a hit on overall quality of the meal. On the plus side a lot of those dry food recipes often work pretty well on camping trips.

Re: Pumps run dry at gas stations in Britain

#257

Post by djhworld »

notatoad wrote: post #210
photochemsyn wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issue with free movement of labor is that it only works out well across a region with standardized pay rates. Otherwise corporations will import labor from the low-cost zones and fire their high-cost local workers. This causes a lot of anger, see Brexit.

Yeah, that's what people keep saying. But if it were true, the staff shortages post-brexit would be easily resolved by simply paying a bit more. The continued staff shortages would seem to mean that it's not simply an issue of pay, and there aren't enough Brits willing to do those jobs.

> that it's not simply an issue of pay, and there aren't enough Brits willing to do those jobs.

From what I've read (and take this with a pinch of salt) there are a lot of licensed HGV drivers in the UK who don't drive anymore, with common reasons being long, unsociable working hours, management that treat you like dirt, shitty rules around where they can park to take rest stops with substandard (typical everywhere in the UK...) facilities, and pay that hasn't risen in decades.

This, combined with not enough younger folk taking up the job, along with Brexit, has led to a shortage

Re: Pumps run dry at gas stations in Britain

#258

Post by hogFeast »

qzw wrote: post #5

> "The free movement of labour is part of the European Union, and we tried very hard to convince the British not to leave the Union," said Olaf Scholz, the Social Democrat candidate to succeed Angela Merkel as German chancellor. "They decided differently. I hope they will manage the problems coming from that," Scholz said. Man, I can smell the schadenfreude from all the way over here.

Not really. The ones who are angry about this are lobbyists representing haulers.

Most people in the UK are very supportive of HGV drivers finally being paid a fair wage. It is unfortunate that political leaders side so quickly with large corporations (although not surprising in Germany, it isn't usual in the UK, the public won't take it).

Re: Pumps run dry at gas stations in Britain

#259

Post by vel0city »

david_allison wrote: post #218
joeberon wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you mean by that? They can fill jerry cans or siphon out fuel at home

You can only store 30 litres of fuel at home. > You can store up to 30 litres of petrol at home or at non-workplace premises without informing your local Petroleum Enforcement Authority (PEA). https://www.hse.gov.uk/fireandexplosion/petrol-storage-club-...

So what happens when that person brings the 31st litre of fuel home? It instantly disappears? Or maybe people will do it despite the law.

In most states in the US its illegal to put gasoline in improper containers. This hasn't stop people from putting them into trash bins and plastic bags in fuel crunches in the US.

Re: Pumps run dry at gas stations in Britain

#260

Post by tolien »

alistairSH wrote: post #238
JetSetWilly wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 inc…

I wonder how that Euro-scepticism among the young breaks across the UK's internal borders? Scotland (62% remain) and NI (56% remain) didn't want Brexit. Will that sentiment hold over the next 5-10 years, or will they slowly follow England and Wales in being anti-EU (both ~53% leave)? I always thought the Brexit vote should have required a supermajority.

The related question is how long the UK will survive with an SNP/SNP-Green government in Scotland and customs restrictions at the NI-GB border. For the same reason that time make an EU re-entry more likely (pro-EU sentiment skews inversely with age), the likelihood there won’t be a UK to rejoin also goes up.
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