Tell everyone not to panic buy and that's exactly what they'll do

LAST week's panic over petrol was like something out of a film. Specifically, a scene out of Patriot Games, one of my favourite films of all time.

If you haven't seen it, and - like me - you prefer your films with car chases and explosions aplenty, then I urge you to go out, get a copy on DVD and enjoy Harrison Ford shooting at Sean Bean. Because, amid all the IRA-themed action, there is a message which serves as a bit of a bizarre metaphor for panic buying petrol.

In one particular scene Ford's character, the jaded ex intelligence agent Jack Ryan, gets paid a visit by a CIA boss, who's popped round to his house to let him know that a gang of Irish paramilitaries are a bit peeved off with him. The boss says it's nothing to worry about but Jack Ryan, being the quintessentially American action hero, works out that being told there's nothing to worry about is the something to be worried about. It's pyschology. Tell people there's nothing wrong and almost always they'll assume the opposite.

Which is why all you Jack Ryans out there, having been told not to panic buy petrol, immediately went out and bought loads of petrol. You were told to top your tanks up. You were told not to panic buy. Do NOT panic, they said. Yet the more you mention the word panic - even when it's preceded by the word “don't” - the more ingrained it becomes in your mentality. Cue the queues spilling out of every petrol station for miles around, and all this because of a strike that hadn't even been confirmed. People were brimming their tanks en masse at £1.45 a litre, a scenario made even worse because the Twitterati - a shadowy group connected with events going back as far as last summer's riots - were turning the panic volume up to 11. As soon as you even mention panic buying, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

With the local elections coming up I'm not allowed to get political and blame the Government. In the run up to polling day I'm not allowed to point out that David Cameron told you not to panic buy. Or that he did suggest everyone went out and topped their tanks up, just to be sure. Or that Francis Maude admitted telling everyone to bring their jerrycans and stock up on fuel was a mistake. This is a Champion blog and, naturally, we couldn't comment. Other than to observe that lots of you have been out panic buying at petrol stations.

Panic buying petrol. Panicking about people panic buying petrol. Just panicking in general. Don't do it. Please?

Panic buying hits petrol stations across Sefton and West Lancashire

IT'S a curious contradiction. Petrol is, most motorists would argue, too expensive, and yet this week scores of them have been queuing up to buy as much of it as they can.

Over the past few days we've been keeping a close eye on threats of a strike by fuel tanker drivers - and the panic buying it's prompted right across our area and other parts of Britain. It's one of those stories that affects almost everyone - even if you don't run a car yourself - and unsurprisingly plenty of you have already got in touch to share your experiences.

The thing is, of course, that panic buying is a self-fulfilling prophecy, because it'll happen as soon as you - or rather, cabinet ministers - allude to it. At the time of writing no strike has actually been confirmed, but if you'd just emerged from a cave and taken a look at the number of "SORRY, NO FUEL" signs out at the moment you'd draw a very different conclusion.

It'll also be interested to see what effect the Twitter generation has on the course of events; the last time there were widespread fuel shortages, way back in 2000, it and Facebook hadn't even been invented. It, is, in many ways, a bit like last summer's riots. Social networking is simultaneously its best mate and its sworn enemy.

Without wanting to, er, fuel the panic, we'd be interested to know how you've been affected. Get in touch via all the usual Life On Cars channels...

Why using ANPR to catch out insurance cheats at petrol stations will never work

CONFESSION time, then, chaps and chapettes. Who out of this week's readers is driving around without their car insurance being up to scratch?

Apparently, just under 10% of the region's motorists are driving around without bothering with the pesky business of paying for cover, which means statistically at least one of you hasn't gone got any. After all, insurance is unbelievably expensive these days. It's also almost completely unfathomable and sold to you by an opera tenor who unites people from all walks of life because they all, without exception, would love nothing more than to have him removed from our TV screens for good.

Car insurance is confusing and expensive and as a result loads of you just can't be bothered with it. Even the Government, as I've mentioned previously, realise it.

Yet Whitehall's latest idea to crack down on the uninsured drivers - which I'm absolutely not one of, by the way - isn't going to work because while it's good in principle, it's got more holes than one of Jamie Oliver's colanders. As a bit of a self-confessed Dragons' Den addict, I just know that if it was some young business boffin's invention it'd be shot to pieces with just a handful of snide remarks from Duncan Bannatyne and a bad joke from Peter Jones. However, it's the Government who are suggesting it, so I will at least try to take it seriously.

In essence, they're on about fitting ANPR cameras, which can recognise car numberplates, to every petrol station in the country in a bid to spot uninsured cars as they pull in to fill up. The technology, which already works a treat on police cars, will then automatically tell the petrol pumps not to give the offending driver any fuel. And presumably give Plod a bell at the same time.

It's a great idea in principle but - Bannatyne mode activated - it will be horrendously expensive in practice, and it'd have to fitted to each and every one of Britain's 8,000 or so filling stations across the land. It'd also encourage even more crooks to clone car numberplates, siphoning would shoot up, and I can just see the court case where the one law-abiding driver, who the cameras clock by mistake, successfully sues for defamation after the system insinuates he's an insurance cheat.

It is, for all those reasons and a couple of others I can't squeeze into one Life On Cars column, a badly-thought out waste of what is basically YOUR money.

I'm out.

Fuelling the debate

THIS week my Champion-reading mates have all been asking me the same question, usually in the same startled tone of voice. Petrol costs how much?

Rises in both fuel duty and VAT over the past week have meant fuel prices have soared in parts of Sefton and West Lancashire to as much as £1.30 per litre for petrol and as much as £1.35 per litre for diesel, meaning the cost of filling your car up now easily beats the previous price records, set in the summer of 2008.

“When you combine the 3.5 per cent increases from the fuel duty and VAT rises this week and those when more fuel duty is added in April, it will put 7p on a litre of unleaded petrol,” said AA spokesman Luke Bodset.

“Low-income drivers, youngsters with their first job who live at home, and part-time workers having to drive to work will be hit hard. There will also be a knock-on effect on the leisure industry, hotels and restaurants because motorists will not be able to afford to go out as much.”

It's also worth remembering that if you think fuel prices are bad now, they're going to get worse, with the Coalition Government planning further increases to the cost of fuel in August. The Freight Transport Association has also said it expects hauliers to be among the worst affected, with fuel costs for them on average going up by £3,800 a year compared to 2009.

Do you think drivers are being overcharged for fuel? Or do you think it's a necessary evil in the Government's attempts to balance the books? Let us know by sending an email to david.simister@champnews.com or commenting on this blog post.