Back to the original point of the thread, the fuel shortage......

I have a friend who owns a large driver recruitment business in Manchester and has done for many years. Supplying HGV drivers to a wide range of industries has been a core part of his business since he started. I spoke with him about this fuel shortage etc and he had some interesting views on it;

In 2015 the RHA issued a press release saying they were 50,000 HGV drivers short of what was required. The industry has been short staffed for years.

During lockdown, training and tests were cancelled and we now have a big logjam of applicants who need training and testing.

Many European Drivers did return home after Brexit which didn't help the situation but the shortages were there Brexit or not.

After lockdown he has seen a transition of HGV drivers taking up offers to drive for companies like Amazon because those companies offer higher than average wages as they know they need to pay it and the jobs offer better lifestyle benefits such as being at home every night and not having to drive hundreds of miles etc.

So all in all he said, a perfect storm. He said there is no one root cause to blame as many holes should have been plugged but were not but that it doesn't stop some people using it as a political football to further their agendas - whatever they may be. He did say Europe has similar issues as his business operates in Europe as well and for the record so does the US have driver shortages.

It's interesting but last week you could drive on to any forecourt and buy fuel. Today you can't. Unless we've had a massive exodus of drivers in the last week, it seems the perpetually negative media have done a sterling job of whipping up fear with the selfish morons in society.

As one woman interviewed by SKY yesterday said as she waited in her 4x4 in a long queue when asked why she was queuing, "I don't know but I thought I should as everyone else is doing it" Or the son of a friend who works at a forecourt in Kidderminster told me a woman in a Range Rover queued to put £7 in. That's all she could get in. Unfortunately, these people and an irresponsible media are just exposing a multi-faceted problem that has been around for years both home and overseas.