Sorry Jon, sure it's no reflection on you
STUDY: UK police officers confuse diesel and gas pumps four times a day, cost taxpayers £1 millionSTUDY: UK police officers confuse diesel and gas pumps four times a day, cost taxpayers £1 million
by Chris Shunk on Jun 9th 2009 at 2:40PM
British police have an expensive problem. It's not crime and it isn't corruption, it's much worse. The £1 million problem is stupidity. Over the course of three years, UK cops have on 4,709 occasions put the wrong fuel in their police cruisers. That's an average of four cars damaged per day, with damages of £6,500 a week. That's more than $1.6 million USD. Blimey.
Each time the wrong fuel is added, the very expensive fuel has to be drained, and in many cases engines have to be repaired. According to the Mirror, one force, The Met, had four times as expensive a problem as any other group, with £194,212 in damage ($316k USD) over three years. In one year alone, the pump-challenged bunch had 287 erroneous re-fuels from its 6,500 unit fleet at a taxpayer cost of £84,992 ($138k USD). That's a mis-fuel rate of .09%.
A group called TaxPayers' Alliance demanded fueling info under the Freedom of Information act from 52 forces in the UK. Eight forces rejected the request, and four more didn't respond. The public action group poured over data over a four month period to come up with the staggering sum of bungled fill-ups.
TaxPayers' Alliance chief Matthew Elliott doesn't mince words when talking about the size and scope of the fuel problem. "Every car damaged is thousands of pounds diverted away from the fight against crime. One would hope our police were more on the ball." One would hope.
To combat the expensive fuel mix-up issue, North Wales placed yellow stickers labeled 'DIESEL' back in 2006, but that didn't stop officers from pumping petrol on 39 different occasions. Many forces have stated that they've tried many things to combat the problem, but apparently only one solution has worked. Humberside has had only one mis-fuel, at a cost of £51. They have an all-gas fleet, which they say saves £250,000 a year. Hmmm....
[Source: U.K. Mirror]
Follow the three R’s: Respect for self Respect for others and Responsibility for all your actions.
--Erma Bombek
How to unearth money laundering, western style.
i know some cops. theres no way they would make mistakes like that. they are car people. know engines and man stuff like that. i find this suspicious mak loey
But do you know British cops?Originally Posted by stfranalum
Too long in Exile, too long not singing my song.
Too long like a rolling stone, Too long in exile
Too long in Exile, baby you just arent my friend.
Too long in Exile my friend, Baby you can never go home again.
I'm sure Jon will be along soon to give us the inside scoop. He can't resist a thread like this
I know a few people who have done this
Why can't they make it impossible to do, by having different shaped holes for diesel and unleaded?
We have large fleets of cars and people are using different cars all the time, some diesel, some unleaded. Shouldn't happen, but it does. As for me, I'm innocent!
We also have quite a lot of car accidents, often involving no other vehicles
To be fair though, a misfuel rate of one in a thousand probably compares with everyone else out there, and police officers might also be distracted by their radio at the time...or their belly
Last edited by Jon; 10th June 2009 at 13:18.
Sur votre bicyclette, mate.
"Your being cited for obstruction of intelligence. Have a nice day and be safe, sir."
Why wouldn't all the cars be on one type of fuel? Especially if the cars are newer.
the recruitment standards are just not what they used to be!
Is this like when people come on the forum and say "Umm, my friend has a problem and I'm asking for advice for him..."
Uhh OK.
That's exactly how it's done in the US but it's no secret that much of the population is not intelligent enough to be self-responsible so we have all these laws and idiot proof procedures in place to protect people from themselves.
Yea, when you put it in those terms, fair enough.
Case in point about people in the US. I was at my mechanic, who was also good friend, jabbering with him while he finished some work on my car. A tow truck shows up and an older (not geriatric) lady is with the driver. They drop the car and my buddy asks the lady, "What's wrong?" "I don't know she replied, it won't start." So my buddy asked her, "What did you do?" and she said "Well, I checked it this morning and it was low on water so I filled it." My mechanic buddy grabs a socket wrench and goes over to the car, pops the hood and pulls out a spark plug which is immediately followed by fountain stream of water.
Turns out that everything was OK for her, just change the oil, pull all the plugs and let if dry for a few days but my god...
P.S. Before you call me on it, I know there are idiots in every country but, I think television (or something) is dumbing down the American population. This is really not meant to be a rant against my home country which I sort of still like.
yeah but everyone at the pump isnt WORKING! you guys are on the clock! should be paying attention...as opposed to some random dude whos strung out on meth or whatever.
it would be like me, 1 out of 1000 times going to the wrong room and teaching a lecture to the wrong class.
but instead this time, the information i gave them purged their minds, forcing them to vomit and crawl on the floor. WHOOPS!must have been a reaction to the low octane grammar!
"my bad, sarge"
"hey no worries, i still get paid on time, like you do!"
ahhhh cops....cant live without 'em. cant slap 'em either.
Book him Dano
I don't think Jon's taking the bait
what can i say? it's all true
cops and cars...always ends in tears
how long you been on the force jon? and what kind of job do you do as a cop?
since Jan 1993, so over 16 years - neighbourhood response team, or plod for short I guess
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