The 2000 Fuel Crisis

[Vantman]

I don't remember anything at all about the 2000 fuel crisis,but I still have these coupons from the 1973 fuel problems,the exact same time that I bought my first lorry!

 

[meggersdog]

Yeah,I remember it now. The roads did seem deserted and towards the end of the week the odd broken down car at the side of the road. Was running the mighty Maestro van in Perkins Prima flavour back then.Plenty of veg-oil and kerosene about so what fuel crisis.

[Pillock]

For whatever reason, me and my then girlfriend decided that a fuel shortage was an ideal time to drive from Nottinghamshire to Surrey to look at a Beetle someone was selling. It was in a 1.8D Fiesta but still, we only started worrying about fuel to get home once the gauge was on the red and we were starting the return journey.

 

I seem to remember banking (correctly) on the motorway services having some, as no bugger wants to pay those prices even when they absolutely have to.

 

My mum was a nurse and had the letter to get fuel from "closed" stations so actually it didn't worry me too much, which is probably why I never even thought about postponing the road trip!

[MikeR]

had just got the volvo , and on the way to work found a garage with petrol .....and brimmed it ...

 

it spent the rest of the crises parked up and its tank drained to run the Escort on the works run with 3 car owners in it !!!!

[Alan_Green]

There was a petrol station on the Folkestone Eurotunnel site that was only accessible to cars just arrived from France.  It was in the weird situation of having loads of petrol and no one to buy it, as all of it's potential customers had just brimmed their cars in France.  I had the right security pass to get my car down to it so could fill up at will, which was just as well as I was doing a 100 mile round trip commute and all of the pumps outside the site were bone dry. 

 

It was great.  Near empty M20/M25 and the few cars that were on there were doing about 40mph (as I bombed past at 80 in an Impreza).

[Tadhg Tiogar]

I don't remember anything at all about the 2000 fuel crisis,but I still have these coupons from the 1973 fuel problems,the exact same time that I bought my first lorry!

 

qpons (2).jpg

 

Reminds me of Green Shield stamps....

[fordperv]

I was 16 and had a kawasaki ar50 to get around on, the tank wouldn't even hold £5 back then, the garage dad and I used had a decent guy working there, they weren't letting people fill Gerry cans but made an allowance for the little bike

 

The fuel crisis made no odds to dad he always filled his sierra to the brim anyway

[Frogchod]

It was great. My company stopped all non urgent site visits for a while.

Which meant I didn't have to drive my Astra

Bloody busy afterwards though as "non urgent" turned into "it's tucking tucked mate"

And I had to spend more time in that chiropractors dream car

[Talbot]

I remember this very well. At the time I was running a 2.0i MK2 cavalier and a IIB forward control Landrover with a Perkins 4.203 in it. I slightly missed the boat on filling the cavalier up, but luckily found some fuel at Sutton Scotney services, and then found the way of going back south again without having to go any further north.

 

As the days passed, the Cavalier was then dry again (I was doing a fair bit of mileage at the time) so enter the Perkins. I didn't know much about what it would run on at the time, so was experiemnting somewhat. A friend needed to move his large caravan he was living in at the time, and his car transporter trailer and spare car. He filled his S3 Landrover up on a blend of Diesel and heating oil, whereas I had discovered that the old nursery he was living on had a tank of abotu 200 litres of Red diesel. He didn't want to risk running on red, so I had all of it and blended it with a little bit of diesel, some heating oil and a load of veg.

 

Middle of the fuel crisis.. roads are empty and no-one's got fuel, so we decide to indulge in some heavy towing for about 150 miles. Was a very easy journey though.

 

The 4.203s fuel system was stained with red for ages afterwards though. Thankfully it was never ever dipped.

[Guest Hooli]

Do I recall the rules on use of red being relaxed for essential things?

[Talbot]

Do I recall the rules on use of red being relaxed for essential things?

Yes. I'm not sure my vehicle or journey would have qualified though...

[Guest Hooli]

I'm not sure it would either, but your post reminded me.

[Talbot]

As i said it was moronic - of course there's a lot of tax on fuel - always has been, unlikely to change.  We need the cash to pay for society.

One of the outcrys at the time was that the UK had (IIRC) just about the most expensive fuel in the world. I think only Iceland and bits of the very north of Scandinavia had similar prices.

 

Taxation will always be with us, but the dispropotionate nature of Tax on road fuel, compared to every other type of fuel we use is absurd.

[AMC Rebel]

One of the outcrys at the time was that the UK had (IIRC) just about the most expensive fuel in the world. I think only Iceland and bits of the very north of Scandinavia had similar prices.

 

 

 

I think that's probably accurate - I think it's mentioned in the BBC report.

[AMC Rebel]

Thanks Hooli - I am not on here to have silly political fallings out - and I think we're agreed on that bit.

 

Getting back to my memory of the actual time - I was working on a contract at a public sector outfit in Bath. - my daily commmute was a walk but I did 138 miles each way at the start and end of the week.

 

In my recollection there was only really one week where it looked potentially dodgy - I was driving a Diesel Mondeo at the time that was pretty good on fuel - I had plenty to get home and back again.

 

One particularly waspish admin woman marched in and told her boss she wouldn't be in work beyond a given day as there was no fuel - she lived about 2 miles away   IIRC it never actually came to that.

[UltraWomble]

I worked for an "essential service" so could obtain fuel for my job car at any station by showing my work ID. Girl living next door to me had a BMW M3, so I took that a few times to fuel up for her. Was only allowed a maximum of about £15 I think, hence the need to take it a few times. It did go well!

Same here  - at the time I was commuting to the hospital on a Honda Cub, but the wide was driving a Laguna - so her car got filled with me driving and I just siphoned off a couple of litres for the Cub.

I can imagine if that happened now there would be a lot more fuel pilfering going on off peoples driveways.

 

Since then I have always kept about a tankful of diesel in the shed just in case.

[chodweaver]

I'd have been in a petrol Civic, not that I remember it, but I do recall getting a few days working from home, once I'd run out of places to get any more UL. Mrs CW would have been in leased Voyager (this was when the rot set in) but only commuting four miles each way, so even in that she was good for a few weeks.

[DodgeRover]

I am not saying Labour are/were great, but nor are any of the others IMHO.

That's the sort of political statement everybody can get behind

 

Wasn't the reason behind the protests the set in stone fuel price escalator that gave price rises every budget irrespective of actual price or economic realities?

 

Given that as fuel prices rise so does the %age tax going to the government they must be having a party over the last 4 months as it's gone from about £1 to £1.50 per litre

[Guest Hooli]

Given that as fuel prices rise so does the %age tax going to the government they must be having a party over the last 4 months as it's gone from about £1 to £1.50 per litre

 

The fuel duty is set at a fixed amount per litre as defined here https://www.gov.uk/tax-on-shopping/fuel-duty

Se we currently pay nearly 60p a litre in duty & then pay 20% VAT on the total price (including the duty) so we pay tax on the tax! hence I called it theft earlier.

 

Taking the price per litre as £1.30, that's 28p VAT & 58p (near enough) duty so 86p or 66% of the cost to our pocket.

 

I can't recall what the fuel escalator was doing at the time, but that does seem to ring a bell.

[UltraWomble]

I wonde3r what the cost of fuel would be if the Gov't switched from taxing vehicles (RFL / RFD) to adding this to fuel.

Factor in adding an automatic liability insurance to fuel costs as well.

 

Sadly neither would be popular and so I doubt any Gov't would ever do it.

[Captain Furious]

I had a Mk6 Escort GTi at the time which was almost brand new - so I wasn't really up for running it on LRP.  I managed to scrape enough fuel together getting £10 here and there from wherever still had any that I could carry on getting to work.  I was working nights at the time so nipping out at 3am to get some also helped beat some of the queues.  Not sure why, they had gifted me the perfect excuse to have a couple of days off but I nevertook advantage of it.  Just as things were starting to look really bleak the lorry drivers packed up their shit and fuel began flowing again.

 

One local garage who had fuel attempted to increase his prices to around £5 a litre, satisfyingly went out of business almost immediately once fuel supply was restored.

[dozeydustman]

My 205XS was the daily driver while this happened. All the modern (at the time) tin couldn't fill up as no unleaded or weasel, there thankfully was plenty of 4 star and LRP to go round.

[The Moog]

Can we keep away from politics please?

 

Memories from the time is fine.

[Talbot]

Taking the price per litre as £1.30, that's 28p VAT & 58p (near enough) duty so 86p or 66% of the cost to our pocket.

 

I can't recall what the fuel escalator was doing at the time, but that does seem to ring a bell.

IIRC at the time although the overall cost of fuel was less (was it about 85-90p/litre at the time?) the proportion that was tax was something like 80% of the overall amount, which was (understandably) somewhat objectionable.

[Captain Furious]

It was an evil genius move to increase the overall cost of fuel so that the tax, when expressed as a percentage of the overall amount, appears to be less objectionable.

[Lord Sterling]

I was about 18 and living in Brussels so this passed me by. I remember the later crisis' and some taxi driver from Birmingham who got done for keeping petrol or diesel in a load of cans and his bathtub as well!

[Guest Hooli]

IIRC at the time although the overall cost of fuel was less (was it about 85-90p/litre at the time?) the proportion that was tax was something like 80% of the overall amount, which was (understandably) somewhat objectionable.

 

That does ring a bell yeah, but I only looked at today's figures which are bad enough.

[Guest Hooli]

I was about 18 and living in Brussels so this passed me by. I remember the later crisis' and some taxi driver from Birmingham who got done for keeping petrol or diesel in a load of cans and his bathtub as well!

 

Oh I remember that. Didn't they evacuate an entire block of flats until it was all removed?

[AMC Rebel]

I was about 18 and living in Brussels so this passed me by. I remember the later crisis' and some taxi driver from Birmingham who got done for keeping petrol or diesel in a load of cans and his bathtub as well!

 Bloke in Derby did similar - also a Taxi Driver.

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/1220240.stm

[Talbot]

It was an evil genius move to increase the overall cost of fuel so that the tax, when expressed as a percentage of the overall amount, appears to be less objectionable.

That's driven by world oil prices though, not anywhere near as controllable by HM Government. That said, putting the fuel duty freeze in place meant that any increase in oil prices makes the taxation look less draconian, which might have been (a very small part) of the reasoning for it's introduction.