http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4236676.stm

This further reinforces my theory that everyone in the UK (with the exception of those who read this wonderful BBS and their immediate family) is fscking stupid. What annoys me even further is that I genuinely have to fill as I coasted back from Liverpool Airport tonight on fumes whereas some c*ck in a land cruiser just tops his tank up 'just in case', multiply this by every fscking tw*t in the country which results in a 'fuel crisis' and the lobbyists haven't even done anything yet.

Or maybe it's because I've been up since 3AM and have spent the entire day trudging round IBC in Amsterdam.

Tell me about it. My local Tesco station was queued for a couple of hundred yards. I go through about £30 of petrol a week so not too bad but I need the car for work so what annoys me more is the grannies in their micras topping up the tank. They'll never use it all and they'll be sitting with a full tank when this protest is going on while those who need petrol will suffer cos everyone has panick-bought. Hissss!

I hear you...

I had to pay £1.03 a litre for Super Unleaded today and had to search around for a garage that didn't have a crazy queue. The stupidest thing about it is that the guys "organising" the protest have stated that they won't be blockading the refineries anyway.

The thing that annoys me is that the BBC changed that story during the day.

Late morning I read this article on Sky News:

http://www.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,30000-13436119,00.html
PETROL PANIC BUYING
Motorists have been told to keep calm amid a spate of panic-buying as fuel protesters threatened a week of blockades and go-slows.

Then I went for lunch, passing a petrol queue thirty cars long, got back then read the article posted above appeared, but with completely different text which I unfortunately don't have a copy of, basically it was saying "no signs of panic buying"!

Anyway, my tank takes £65 and I brimmed it last week the day after the protests were announced. Worst comes the worst I could work from home pretty easily, in fact I could do that permanently if I had some neat Asterisk > SIP phone redirection stuff going on.....

Gareth

How many protesters are there that people are worried about not being able to buy gas ? How would people protesting prevent you from getting gas anyway ?

Last time this happened in the UK The protestors simply blocked the exits to the various oil refineries and gas distribution hubs around the country. They did a very effective job of stopping gas getting to the gas stations.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UK_fuel_protest

Rumour has it that all police leave is cancelled and the major oil terminals will be tightly controlled by police, however I doubt this possibility has p

I can't imagine that the gov't will let anything like last time happen again, which either means it will be:

a) A damp squib - bit of argy bargy and they go home, possibly a go-slow or two

b) Major confrontations with the police, blockades *outside* the cordons (causing even more havoc)

c) Same as last time.

Given the rumours of petrol rationing and no word from the gov't on what they are planning to do then I have no idea which of the above will happen.

There will be serious panic buying tomorrow for sure, whatever happens! Apparently some cities up north are already dry.

Gareth

<rant>
Isn't it fun to look at the world through the "Mad Max glasses" of gas deprevation? Go ahead world, keep on filling those Hummers and racing Nascar/Indy/F1. Sure, there's plenty of gas for more important uses like the military and emergency vehicles. And if not, a fire truck can run off batteries and an F15 can run off solar panels, right?

(damn wasteful Americans and SUVs and car racing with their wasteful aircraft "fly by's". i can't wait till the world runs out of crude oil and we'll all be putting along in our hydro-, solar-, or vegetable-oil powered cars.)
</rant>

US military is one of the biggest petrol wasters. Besides, there's plenty of crude in Iraq to refine and power the US' military might. And conveniently much of that armament is already in the middle East and Iraq proper.

I'm sure Bush et al. are rubbing their little grubby hands together smiling their biggest grins. Don't worry, they'll make sure the gasoline flows. But it's going to be at prices you're not going to like - but they'll make sure you have to pay.

Bruno

Same here in Leeds !!!

One Esso dropped the price from 95.9p to 90.9p mid afternoon, and that instantly sparked panic buying, I wouldn'd have minded but I wanted to stop there, but not for petrol, but couldn't get anywhere near the place.

People in this country really do need to sort themselves out !!!

Cheers

Cris.

Haven't seen any signs of panic buying up here yet. Realistically I have to fill my car every two days or so anyway, and with SuperUnleaded at £1.11 now it is getting less fun...especially as from next year our company allowance drops from 40p a mile to 13p a mile.

Maybe the Prodrive Performance Pack was not such a good idea

Also there appears to be a media blackout. This appears to be a busy forum and there is rumours about a media blackout, or "soft pedal" at least. For example many cities are "dry", definate panic buying at the local station on the way to work but look at the BBC news or Sky news front pages and you wouldn't know anything about it!

Gareth

In Atlanta we had fuel problems right after Katrina hit. The governor of GA said not to panic and not to top off. He said that gas supply wouldn't be a problem.

Well, he was wrong. Two days later half the stations were out of gas and my wife and I almost ran out looking for a gas station. We were driving across the city and had to try 8 different stations before we found one with gas, and we were running on fumes when we did. We'd have been better off if we paniced and got gas when it was still available. , ,

All that says to me is that you're buggered if you do, and you're buggered if you don't. At least you can rest assured you didn't give in to idiocy.

To add insult to injury it looks like we might have to call off our holiday we were due to take this weekend to Newquay as it's unlikely we'll be able to get the petrol to get down there and back.

EDIT: On second thoughts you're problem isn't the same as ours, the government and the protesters have said there aren't any problems with the supply of fuel it's just people being stupid.

I can't wait until the weekend. I don't use my cars during the week and both have a full tank.

Driving was bliss back in 2000 when we had the last protests

People around here seem to be being a little more sensible today.

I took my camera with me when I went out to buy cat food, with the idea of documenting the silliness. I was surprised to find that all but one of the local garages had fairly normal sized queues.

The only garage with a silly queue was the local Shell. Now I know why I prefer Shell (I try to only use Shell Optimax in the Scooby and MX5), but I don't know why only Shell had a big queue.

Guess which garage I spotted a press photographer outside ? Yep, he was there at the Shell carefully positioned to get shots maximising the length of the queue

I didn't take any shots in the end, left him to it.

Unless something goes wrong tomorrow (like some other group of idiots join in the protest) I don't get the feeling we are going to have the problems of last time. I think your holiday is safe Andy...

All 4 of the Petrol Stations (Jet - Stanningley, Esso - Adel and Horsforth, Texeco - Ring Road) I passed on my way home around the Leeds Ring Road tonight had signs up saying "No Petrol, Pumps Closed". People were still filling up with Diesel though. The Shell's around here are still open, but there are people queueing onto the roads.

It's total madness if you ask me, I bet the stations aren't even dry and they are just doing a damage limitation exercise, which is just sparking more panic buying.

AndyM - How about going on the train ? I bet it is all ok by the weekend anyway.

Cheers

Cris.

I managed to stick 20 quid in this afternoon which was all I was allowed, but at a result I've now got a 3/4 full tank. The garage in question had no queue. I figure unless something happens tomorrow (blockades and the like) then things will be back to normal by the weekend and I'll be able to fill up on the way.

LOL That sounds like fun

Went to a wedding the day of Diana's funeral - a four hour drive became a two hour drive! Filling up at a Shell garage last night was excellent - all normal pumps shut, and obviously most folks don't realise you can use Optimax instead of normal unleaded so those pumps were empty.

Got a good blatt in this morning as well

Why not start our own, excruciatingly more effective protest by taking public transportation to work? Possible, or impossible?

Using the train, my 1.5 hour, 64 mile round trip could be turned into a morning nap and much-needed evening reading time. I'd just need to bike 3 miles to my station and 7 urban-ish, heavy traffic miles to work (those are one way numbers). 20 miles a day... Would be nice in Fall and Spring... If I can bring my bike on the train, I just might try it.

<edit>Further math:
Let's guess 10 mph on the bike, 20 mile total biking daily, so that's 2 hours there.
Best-case train + bike total = 3 hours.
Best-case car total = 1.5 hours.
Best-case times using train+bike = leave home 7am -> work 8:32am, leave work 4:50pm -> home 6:24pm.

Cost for train+bike = $140 to $160/month, assuming use 4 days a week + $27/month drive 1 day a week.
Cost to drive = July/Aug05 $120/month, Sept05 $153/month

So, train+bike costs more and takes longer, yet gets me in shape biking 20 miles a day and forces me to do real work for 1 hour on the train AND saves gas!!
Clearly it would be easier to car pool with either of two co-workers who live somewhat nearby me. Instant 1/2 cost and fuel usage.
</edit>

Exactly. My 20 minute commute by car would turn into at least a 1 hour, 47 minute bus commute with two changes on two different bus lines.

If I took a contract in Central London then I would use the trains, as it would actually be quicker than driving. I don't take contracts in London for this reason (even though I could probably earn an extra $40 an hour).

No service/not possible. The only person I could car pool with is very punctual about arriving/leaving. While I'm punctual about arriving, I often work until 6 or 6:30 at night. Car ride: 55 minutes each way unless there's heavy snow or ice. No traffic to speak of.

-Zeke

Phew! You guys really spend a lot of time in traffic!

It currently takes me about 5 minutes by car plus 5 minutes searching for parking (I keep promising myself I would go on foot from tomorrow - 20-25 min ). In Zagreb it is usually quicker to go by car than public transport, unless the endpoint is the strict city center, but my commute was never longer than 45 minutes, even by public transport. Then again, Zagreb has barely 1M people, and I never lived in the suburbs.

When I worked in Vienna or Paris it was either the same or the train/tube/tram/bus were quicker. For example, in Paris it took from the flat near Trocadero to the customer in Saint-Denis (near the Stade de France) some 15 min walk plus 30 min by Metro. Once or twice when I was being given a lift it was more than an hour...

Ride my bike to work (~10 miles each way): 32 minutes going to work; 40 minutes to ride from work. (Downhill vs uphill commute)

Cost to bike: ~10 cents per round trip (maintenance on the bike)
Benefits: an hour and 12 minutes of empeg time. An exhilarating, energizing experience.

Driving my car to work: 17 minutes each way. (the ShoWagon goes up hill as fast as it goes downhill) .

Cost to drive: ~$5.00 per round trip. (gallon of gasoline + 10 cents a mile for tires, depreciation, wear and tear etc.)
Benefits: A very powerful listening experience. A smooth, comfortable, no-effort ride.

There are pros and cons to each scenario. In general, I bike to work whenever I can, usually about four days a week. There are difficulties, however... my bike commuting route takes me through an army base (Fort Wainwright) and they keep tightening their security policies, making it more and more difficult to gain access. They don't allow bicycles at all when there is snow on the ground. And the riding season is relatively short. It's been said that Alaska has four seasons like everywhere else, but ours are June, July, August, and Winter.

tanstaafl.

I bike to work occasionally: 20 miles each way; 1:10 in, 1:20 home on a good day, 5 minutes more if I'm dragging (or there's a bad headwind off the Potomac). It's about 45 minutes in and home during rush hour by car. No empeg in either my car or my bike. It stays at home, and I listen at work via VPN.

I love to bike, but our nanny gets cranky if I'm more than a little late (she has a 16 year old at home herself) so I can only do it 1 day a week. Sigh.

-jk

I have a 10 minute walk to work

I live in Garrett Park - a small town near Kensington - and work at the northern edge of Old Town. When I bike, I use the sidewalk of Connecticut Ave to the Capital Crescent and Mt Vernon trails, crossing at the Key bridge. (My wife works on capitol hill, but I almost never actually get into the District except when I'm biking.)

When I drive, I come over the Legion Bridge and down the GW. In August or during off-peak hours, it's about a 30 minute drive each way.

-jk