September 14th 2005: Fuel Protests II

[Andrew]

Which is currently 89.7p I believe.

That's cheap! My local price is 99.9!

I tell a lie, its actually 89.9 at my local Tescos today. The Shell one is now 93.9 though, which shows Tesco can't be making much profit on petrol at the moment.

[cwathen]

Last night, my local Tescos garage shut up shop with unleaded standing at 93.9 and diesel at 95.9. This morning they opened up with unleaded jumping to 96.9 and disesel to 97.9.

Roll on September 14th.

I'd welcome more fuel protests if they're likely to bring down the cost of petrol.

Well they did last time - the protests of 2000 happened because average prices had reached 83p. When I passed my driving test 6 months later I was filling up at 64p / litre. It also took 4 years for average prices to get to that level again. I still believe that some garages will be below 80p again before this year is out.

[mr smuf]

If the governement didn't levy such a high tax on fuel, they'd do it on something else. It's swings and roundabouts I'm afraid.

[Johnny]

I remember the last blockade we used to have an Esso Garage in the High Road (now knocked down to make way for yet another tower block that is so desperately needed in East London :roll: ) in front of our street & it reaked of petrol for hours afterwards, and all the little kiddies out in the street were getting high off of the fumes

[nwtv2003]

I remember the last blockade we used to have an Esso Garage in the High Road (now knocked down to make way for yet another tower block that is so desperately needed in East London :roll: ) in front of our street & it reaked of petrol for hours afterwards, and all the little kiddies out in the street were getting high off of the fumes

I remember the last time it happened, there was a closed down Petrol station on the edge of this village called Lymm, anyway the station itself had been closed for a couple of years, but then someone tried using the pumps to see if they work, and they did, so thanks to word of mouth people heard about this.

But the pumps themselves got boarded up a day or two after and that's how they've been ever since, still there today.

[Lorns]

I remember the last one too. My fella took me out and taught me how to syphon petrol from the neighbours cars. I wouden't touch a ciggie for hours after that experience

[Johnny]

I remember the last blockade we used to have an Esso Garage in the High Road (now knocked down to make way for yet another tower block that is so desperately needed in East London :roll: ) in front of our street & it reaked of petrol for hours afterwards, and all the little kiddies out in the street were getting high off of the fumes

I remember the last time it happened, there was a closed down Petrol station on the edge of this village called Lymm, anyway the station itself had been closed for a couple of years, but then someone tried using the pumps to see if they work, and they did, so thanks to word of mouth people heard about this.

But the pumps themselves got boarded up a day or two after and that's how they've been ever since, still there today.

I'm surprised they didn't keep it to themselves & just keep using it or charge people for it at the time to use the pumps

[cwathen]

I remember the last time it happened, there was a closed down Petrol station on the edge of this village called Lymm, anyway the station itself had been closed for a couple of years, but then someone tried using the pumps to see if they work, and they did, so thanks to word of mouth people heard about this.

Presumably they kept paying the electric bill then? And also never had a modern (well, early 80's) system installed which would have required the cashier to press a button to activate each pump each time it is used?

And that's before even getting into the issue of a petrol station closing down but still maintaining highly flammable fuel stock with explosive gas for 2 years in presumably (since no one queried these few days of free fuel) unchecked storage tanks?

Methinks this didn't really happen...

[Spencer For Hire]

I remember the last one too. My fella took me out and taught me how to syphon petrol from the neighbours cars. I wouden't touch a ciggie for hours after that experience

I had two cars at the time - my own which had a full tank of petrol, but was completely knackered and kept breaking down, and a company car which was fully roadworthy but had no petrol.

As I needed to drive to Birmingham Airport to go on holiday, I tried to syphon the petrol from my old car into the company car. Unfortunately I ended up suffering countless mouthfuls of petrol, and gave it up as a bad job. It really was thoroughly disgusting. The taste of petrol even repeated on me for hours afterwards in the same way that strongly flavoured food does.

In the end I slipped the mechanics at my local garage a tenner to do it for me.

[Jamez]

There is to be a 20mph go-slow protest along the M4 in south Wales next week.

The protesters will begin at J48 (the end of the M4) in Carmarthenshire and then head eastbound to Newport. They will turn round and head back to Carmarthenshire, where they will vote on whether to blockade the oil refineries at Milford Haven.

I remember about a year ago, a huge convoy of tooting lorries drove through Cardiff city centre causing absolute traffic chaos. I hope they don't do that again.

[marksi]

96.9p now here in NI too. We weren't affected by the fuel protests last time at all as there is 3 weeks worth of petrol held here in the province. There would be no effect on us unless a protest lasted longer than that, and many people would get their fuel from the RoI anyway. That's not as easy here in the Greater Belfast area, but I see the fuel protests as something we can look on as potentially benefitting us without having any negative effect on our day-to-day lives.

The only problem would be for the rioters in that one square mile of North Belfast That Time Forgot who don't seem to have realised that the troubles ended years ago. The price of petrol bombs must be seriously affecting their ability to buy nasty gold-ique jewellery fom Elizabeth Duke at Argos.