Don’t panic, don’t panic

I drove down to London for work last week and to attend the premier of the new Bond movie, and before I left home I knew I needed to fill my car with fuel.

Like everyone else, I had read about the issues with potential supplies at petrol stations, so I was initially concerned that my I wouldn’t be able to fill my tank with enough diesel to get to and from the airport. I phoned my local garage at 7am to be told they had diesel and there was no queue. What a relief.

However, when I got to the Big Smoke, it was a different story. On my way to the theatre, my taxi sat in bumper-to-bumper traffic for almost 20 minutes, during which time we only managed to move about 500 metres. It turns out the tailback had been caused by a huge queue of cars blocking the single lane road as they waited to enter one of the few city centre fuel stations that had petrol!

It’s fascinating (or should that be worrying?) to see how quickly people can panic when there is even a slight hint of supply issues, and it does make you wonder how susceptible we are to mob mentality and looking out only for ourselves. Remember when people starting stockpiling toilet paper at the start of the pandemic because everyone else was?

The reaction to the current crisis has meant the government are now deploying the Army to deliver fuel around the country.

It’s important to remember that some people – key workers and emergency services, for example – might need their cars more than we do, so let’s not panic or head down to our local Esso with jerrycans.