Some appear to be, some absolutely are not.

Where do you fit in? Prepared to take a real pay cut to assist the more vulnerable? Have your conditions changed so you're working longer for the same pay in a less safe environment?

Or should the only people who have to be the ones who might affect your little world?

Are the employers of the fuel drivers "all in this together" with them and having their terms and conditons altered?

....unless you have to drive to Cornwall over Easter on your annual rugby tour along with around 65 other families.

You don't seem to have noticed Cod'ead's response to your earlier rant - this dispute isn't about pay bargaining, as far as I know they aren't asking for any more money at all and there is no "deal" as you intimated earlier, its about H&S and increasing pressures on drivers to fit more and more work into the same number of hours.

Thats the thing with HGV drivers, there is a clearly defined limit to the hours that they can drive, so assuming that an employer is flogging them to the limit each day there is only one other way to make them produce more - make more deliveries, and there is only one way to make more deliveries - be faster at the point of delivery or drive faster to get there.

Now think about how you would achieve that when you're driving a truck full of petrol.

Thats what the dispute is about.

Seriously though, public support for tanker drivers will evaporate faster than the volatile hydrocarbons they transport if they actually strike. I suspect there will be non of the bollo*k$ we saw during the last fuel dispute where 2 taxi drivers were all that was required to "blockade" an entire refinary while the police looked on completely "helpless" - now we all know what would have happened if they had been miners don't we? All that will happen is that a lot of ordinary people will get shafted while supplies are "prioritised".

Get around the table and get it sorted, currently the government look like the t00ls. Let's keep it that way.

I'm sure the various shop stewards and union leaders are sat round a table now gleefully discussing bringing the country to a standstill.

Just for those too young to remember, rlthis is what happensrl when one tanker full of explosive liquid/gas explodes on a roadside.

Obviously not on the scale of the above but there have also been increasing indidences of mis-fuelling at forecourts over recent years, where delivery drivers have pumped diesel into gasoline tanks and vice versa. It can be an expensive mistake in terms of potential engine damage but there's also the problem of adding a volatile fuel to a relatively benign one. You need a burning torch to get diesel to catch but add gasoline in the right ratio (70/30 gas to DERV is about right) and you've got the potential for some serious fireworks.

The Los Alfaques disaster involved LPG and many forecourts also dispense this fuel. The problem with LPG is that it's heavier than air and it will always run downhill or seep into drains and could manifest itself miles away from the original problem. IIRC (from my Hazchem training in the mid-70s) there was a disaster involving a crashed LPG tanker and a Scottish primary school.

Hence the word 'personally' preceding my statement.

It'll be a right old pain in the arris and damaging for a lot of people but personally speaking, a week minimising petrol use won't hurt.

www.itv.com/news/tyne-tees/2012- ... s-of-fuel/ Caught my eye.

www.itv.com/news/tyne-tees/2012- ... s-of-fuel/ Caught my eye.

You actually believe that, don't you?

Have you bothered reading any of what this threatened strike is about?

Do you want tankers charging around the country trying to make unmanageable deadlines? I've been a wagon driver, I know what the pressure can be like, and that was only carrying bits of plastic.
This is about H&S more than anything else, no matter how the government is trying to muddy the waters. Yes, there is an aspect of pension in there, but given what they're driving, they can have whatever pension they're due for me.

Erm, actually I don't think he does.

I wish you'd read more of his posts on this thread mate

Seem to remember the Tory supporting Country Side Alliance and thousands of lorry drivers up in arms when Labour was in power when fuel was nearly half the price. Where are they?

Why should anyone take a reduction in terms and conditions, the current situation is caused by things far beyond our control and the Tory answer as always is to batter the masses and look after the few on the premise that it costs very little to assist the already fabulously wealthy. Anyone on a million quid salary has just had a £42,000 pay rise (without even getting a salary increase) and the likes of Wayne Rooney (depending on how close media speculation is about his pay) will be getting £12,500 per WEEK extra (based on 250k per week), that is of course assuming (naively maybe) that these people are paying anywhere near 50% in the first place.