Taxi Driver Online

Plymouth drivers, eh, filling their tanks and all that

Anyway, not much to see here, and thought this looked quite juicy from the headline, but in the grand scheme of things it's just someone moaning in the letters page of the Plymouth Herald, so not particularly exciting, nor unexpected.

In fact most of this is about other stuff related to the fuel crisis, but I've included all three letters. The one about the taxi driver is the first letter below, and is quite short


Plymouth taxi drivers labelled 'greedy' for filling tanks at different fuel stations

https://www.plymouthherald.co.uk/news/p ... dy-5993568

"I was outraged...what utter greed and selfishness", says one reader who has been left furious over the fuel crisis

A Plymouth man has labelled taxi drivers and other motorists as "greedy" and "selfish" for filling up their petrol tanks completely.

These are the words of Geoffrey Brooking who wrote to our sister paper the Plymouth Herald to share his outrage after a taxi driver told him that he and others had been driving to multiple petrol stations in order to get a full tank of fuel.

This is just one of three letters from readers we've chosen to feature on today's edition of Plymouth Speaks.

Pete Milory and "B Oxenham" also write in about the fuel crisis.

Pete fears that consumers will have to pay for this fuel crisis and criticises the government for making EU workers feel unwelcome.

He also says "flooding" the roads with inexperienced HGV drivers will be dangerous.

However, "B Oxenham" has a differing opinion and offers an alternative view. They say that there is no fuel shortage in Plymouth and the UK doesn't need "outside help".

Read more about the views shared by our readers in the letters below:


Greed and selfishness has led to this situation

"I can't believe people can be so silly as to turn a storm in a tea cup into a full blown crisis as regard record fuel sales.

"I was astonished to see on my journey to church on Sunday a fleet of some twenty vehicles all queuing for their twenty quid’s worth of petrol.

"Yet I was outraged when the taxi driver who drove me there told me how he and others had been driving to different petrol stations so as to fill their tanks completely.

"What utter greed and selfishness."

Geoffrey Brooking


Consumers will end up paying price for this crisis

"We are slipping into a desperate crisis which has been inflicted by this blinkered government. There is a massive shortage of 100,000 HGV drivers that is having a knock on effect.

"Drivers of local authority recycling vehicles are now being poached by desperate haulage companies. Already recycling collections are being affected.

"One HGV driver has been offered an increase of £7.00 an hour to stay with his present employer! The cost of these cash bonuses will of course be passed onto the consumer.

"Why has this happened? The government has made European HGV drivers feel unwelcome and they went home when the pandemic hit, and have not come back.

"The government’s solution to this crisis - bonuses for HGV apprentices - but the National Haulage Association states it takes 18 months to train a HGV driver.

"Moving to smaller vehicles will simply increase the problem - more pressure on drivers, more lorries on the road, less freight being moved.

"The shortage of drivers is already having a knock on effect, petrol stations are shutting, supermarkets are having problems filling shelves, pubs are running short of certain beers, popular takeaways are reducing menus.

"The crucial sinews which hold the British economic network together have been seriously damaged. Finding 100,000 new HGV drivers will not be easy. Flooding busy roads with Inexperienced drivers will be potentially dangerous.

"The average age of HGV drivers is 55. So the problem is not going to go away.

"Britain, like other countries like Japan and China, has an ageing population, it does not have enough younger workers to do the necessary jobs, and pay tax, to support the older population. Immigrant workers are a necessity.

"China has relaxed its one child policy, even Japan is beginning to let in migrant workers. The dogmatic government is increasingly locking us into an unsustainable situation.

"Trying to blame the pandemic for the problems caused by cutting us off from a large, flexible work force after forty years of being reliant on that work force.

"Declarations by Grant Shapps that we must “stand on our own two feet”, are not helpful when we are short of at least 100,000 HGV drivers.

"Facing reality, and not acting like ostriches is what a responsible government should be doing. Even when many of the problems are of their own making.

"Granting temporary visas for 5000 foreign drivers won’t solve the problem Johnson has caused, either. What about the other 95% of the driver shortage?"

Pete Milory


No need for drama on petrol station queues

"Yet again we see more doom and gloom from the TV news channels, both nationally and local productions over the shortage of fuel deliveries at petrol stations.

"This may be the case in places like central London for example, but it is hardly applicable to here in the Plymouth area with a main distribution depot in Cattedown.

"The pictures I witnessed on my screen of the line of cars queuing for fuel at the Sainsburys branch, Marsh Mills, its always like that on a Friday, especially after noon.

"Nothing unusual with the rear of the queue on the roundabout, it has always occurred long before the virus, on even before Brexit.

"On doing the weekly shopping, this same Friday last, at the Tesco branch Lee Mill, the fuel queue was as normal, so wide do the TV presenters portray such a negative approach to a news item which may be the case somewhere elsewhere in the country, but certainly not locally.

"Of course there is a shortage of HGV drivers, but so there is in the EU as well.

"A question now for my fellow contributors to the Your Views section of the Herald who like to gather figures and percentages is the following: This is about the number of HGV driving examinations/tests have been conducted in the last say five years?

"Let us know on a year by year and how the results compare. Has there been enough for example to replace the drivers that have retired?

"Finally on record it is believed that the are 20,000 serving in the Army that have HGV licences, are they all driving military vehicles each day?

"We certainly do not need outside help whenever a minor problem occurs."

B Oxenham

So he takes a taxi to church, yet objects to taxi drivers filling up?

What's the betting he doesn't need to go anywhere in particular (except church, obviously) and his income is unaffected by the crisis. Easy for such people to take the moral high ground

It's a bit like these people on a guaranteed £100k working from home during lockdown moaning when others want to keep their businesses open, or whatever

I think someone needs to tell this idiot what taxis actually do

i.e. transport Nurses and doctors, Carers, Schoolchildren as well as people to important doctors appointments and to catch trains, planes and ferries

the selfish ones are the people just shoving less than £5 worth in after doing 1 shopping trip

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lack of modern legislation is the iceberg sinking the titanic of the transport sector

Indeed.

Only a numpty of the highest order will queue for an hour and only half fill their tank.

I queued 40 minutes at Tesco's Gatwick today in a bloody long queue, but thankfully I was waiting for a punter from the airport, so not only got my fuel but saved £8 worth of parking at the airport.

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IDFIMH