Well, the bbc news on thursday night saisd there was a possibility of a shortage and the next day all the garages local to me were emptied. I'd suggest that points to TV Media news by the BBC and others being the current cause...
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You got plenty of fuel??
Just asking...
I agree with everything you say there except the 100k missing drivers. I just can't get my head around having another 100k trucks on the road.
According to the data we have 170k trucks over 31t on the road. So how do we need another 100k HGV drivers? Does that mean we need to increase the number of trucks on the road by over 50%?
I must be missing something here, but I can't see what.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/...ingdom-weight/
Started out with nothing. Still have most of it left.
The 100k figure was analyzed on More or Less on Radio 4 a few weeks back. Around 50k is a historic shortage, we’ve been short of 50k lorry drivers for number of years. Quite how they work out there is a 50k shortfall when wages were low and no problems delivering goods I don’t know, but that is the base figure.
Then add in EU lorry drivers who have returned to the EU post Brexit. This is 20-25k, based on a survey which showed around 45k EU drivers prior to Brexit, and about 20-25k EU driver now.
I can’t recall where the other 25k was supposed to have come from.
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Just about to get eaten between runs down to Sheffield.
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The figures being bandied about are just media hype. They love numbers. People believe numbers. Next thing they'll be telling us there's a spare £350 million a week going for grabs.
And keep in mind cabotage.
In the old days, a lorry would come over from - say - Germany to bring stuff over to London, then maybe spin up to Leeds to bring some stuff back to Germany. But because they were going from London to Leeds anyway, they would pick up some stuff from London to Leeds and points between rather than travel empty (earning nothing).
How many drivers did this add to the system? And how many more are needed to plug this new hole?
https://www.lexology.com/library/det...7-6b365d19b750
Last edited by barneygumble; 28th September 2021 at 19:40.
Regarding Adrian’s post copied from Facebook:
It is incorrect.
Yes a tanker driver needs additional qualifications compared to HGV drivers.
Yes a significant number of EU drivers have stopped coming to the UK as of last January.
They created the critical deficit, the one that long hours cannot patch up (unlike the existing deficit that existed before).
We saw the effects very quickly, first in exports that dwindled and HGVs crossing to the continent empty (drivers are not happy), then imports that did not arrive within the expected JIT model. I believe a few people here have experienced delays in construction, in new cars deliveries, and then of course in supermarkets.
The same thing WAS HAPPENING with petrol deliveries. The number of stations that had supply issues rose from 10% to 16%, without any help from the Beeb.
No one mentioned it, therefore the problem did not exist.
Except it did.
The supermarkets hired drivers with more attractive wages. Excellent.
The fuel distributors did not react so some tanker drivers heeded the call.
Then we started to have a genuine problem, but we didn’t yet know it.
Many here can testify they knew of petrol stations with sometimes a full row of pumps out of order. It was all right of course, just the waiting time was a bit longer. And as long as no one mentioned it it remained a local issue, nothing systemic.
Then things take a turn for the worse, the press starts mentioning it and suddenly it becomes the Beeb’s fault.
Talk about shooting the messenger!
I hope that all those criticising the media coverage realise that they are advocating for a press that only tells you about things when there is nothing you can do to mitigate the effects. A press under government orders, so to speak. It would of course be all for our own good.
Last edited by Saint-Just; 28th September 2021 at 21:52.
'Against stupidity, the gods themselves struggle in vain' - Schiller.
I wonder is it legal to drive around with what amounts to a fuel-air bomb on a trailer?
Facebook shite for the sharers I'm afraid. Standard agricultural containers for water or fuel. IBC.
I see my area (SE London/Kent) has been a hot spot in the media for long queues making roads grind to a halt and forecourt fist fights breaking out between queuing motorists. Made me wonder...what happens if you actually run out of petrol and now have to go on foot to fill a 5L can....kind of a bit awkward...how do you queue?
Surely eveybody can access 2m of hose and someone willing to sell some of their unneeded fuel?
Or is syphoning a lost art?
The BBC News at Ten tonight.
“But what do you do to solve a crisis whose main cause is the behaviour of we the consumer…”
So apparently not the BBCs fault at all but the consumers.
Also News at Ten…
“Well the long queues at pumps which followed an initial shortage at a relatively small number of petrol stations has shown how fragile the UKs supply chain can be…”
How many supply chains would cope with panic buying on that scale?
Started out with nothing. Still have most of it left.
I would argue that the JIT model is very vulnerable to any change of behaviour from any of the actors of the chain, and the slightest disruption snowballed.
The only way to avoid this is to build resilience in, like having extra drivers and larger stocks in the stations. But of course this has a cost.
Also, the public is not responsible for the failure, just like the public was not responsible for the collapse of Northern Rock: in both cases, it was those companies exposure that were the main cause.
If the reserves in stations had been correctly filled up and deliveries happened as needed, no surge in demand, be it from a “panic buying”, would cause a shortage.
It’s a bit like blaming the public for the lack of hospital beds in winter. After all, if those people didn’t all get ill at the same time the hospital would cope.
'Against stupidity, the gods themselves struggle in vain' - Schiller.
Yes, it exposes the vulnerability of the system we have.
I don't agree with the BBC's assertion that the "..main cause is the behaviour of we the consumer.." ie the public. The public were led by other actors.
Yes that's true, but the shortages that were happening didn't warrant the media's response to them imo. Especially given past episodes where news stories triggered panic buying. Sometimes there has to be a bigger picture than just 'the story' surely?
Similar yes, but not quite the same. The public don't generally have a choice about getting ill in winter, but panic buying is a choice you make. Although it could be argued that evolution programmed you to make that decision, as a survival mechanism to secure supplies I suppose, which means you had no 'choice'! ;-)
Started out with nothing. Still have most of it left.
Will soon be PANIC buying Tesco veg oil!
Just imagine what will happen when the UK has shortages of tea!
Then you'll see the collapse of society.
There are clever people in this thread who will no doubt be paid to look at detail and solve problems
This is a failure of lazy ministers who could not be bothered to get close to detail. The media call this 'he/she is not close to their brief'
It's laziness and ineptitude. Cummings said he has never seen such a poor bunch running anything in private companies intelligent people lead teams of other intelligent people and they work things out .
This is a systemic failure, in that I agree with Cummings, we do not have an organisation for to solve issues like pandemics and Brexit whatever. It's a system set up to maintain the 'old ways'
This isnt politics, it's just operational failure. Until we modernise we will keep having these issues
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Seems to sum it up pretty well;
https://centralbylines.co.uk/hgv-dri...t-got-us-here/
As I said earlier our Government are in denial, they keep playing Boris's everything is getting back to normal speech on the radio, I think he has sidestepped reality, yesterday every garage in the town where i work had run out of fuel, the garages in Chelmsford that I passed had no fuel, I had a go in Harlow later and only one garage had fuel but the queue was half a mile long, I went back two hours later and they had run out of fuel, this morning the cones are still out everywhere, glad I stole the wife's car today.
That is unkind. I had a few contacts with the CS in my early years in this country and was always impressed by how efficient and pleasant they were to deal with (it was face to face in these times).
Also, the alternative to a CS is a Private Service, and I have been really appalled by those large groups who have taken over what was part of the CS, the Centrica, G4S, etc.
Last edited by Saint-Just; 29th September 2021 at 08:28.
'Against stupidity, the gods themselves struggle in vain' - Schiller.
My Nespresso orders are usually next day delivery, and the Yodel service has been absolutely superb (Yes, Yodel and superb in the same sentence, you read correctly). It is usually the same guy too (yesterday was another).
However, the post you were responding to reminded me of this:
'Against stupidity, the gods themselves struggle in vain' - Schiller.
Most of Tesco drivers up north come from an agency called logistics people who are owned by stobarts, the Co-op use the agency ADR and are quite good payers. Aldi i don’t know if they do, but they pride themselves as paying the highest for there own drivers. Lidl well what can you say they are just a shower of shit and after 3 days in there place and seeing some of the stuff that goes on will never step foot in one of there shops ever again !!!
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Let Nespresso know. If enough people do it... Also TP, which is quite illuminating
https://uk.trustpilot.com/review/paack.co
'Against stupidity, the gods themselves struggle in vain' - Schiller.
I currently have 443 delinquent lines of components, petrol, coffee, wood, that's nothing.
my personal view id we are all going to have to go through a reset and a bout of inflation
for too long inflation has been kept artificially low by JIT and cheap labour from overseas
Low inflation leads to low interest rates which relaxes people (it also feed the house market but that's a different story)
Driving and HGV is not a nice social life job, the pay needs to reflect that so market forces attract people into it, not steal people from overseas who'll work for very little, this will make things cost more
Picking fruit is an unpleasant task and the solution is to pay enough to get people to do it, not import cheap labour, it makes fruit more expensive but it's the real price, no one is going to invest in inventing a machine which human labour is cheaper
Being a carerm being a nurse etc etc etc
all of this needs a reset, it will hurt but we'll end up with higher interest rates, higher but real wages and a higher cost of living, but it will be the real price and sustainable
He loves it, he gets a double shot with lots of chocolate on top, and a nature valley bar. He sits at the table enjoying life for 5 minutes.
He must be plopping wet sawdust in the van after that combo though, not ideal.
Sadly we can't use him in the new house because he uses one of those brooms with a hose in the middle and we don't have double glazing.