Police officers put wrong fuel in cars.

[ringway]

Police officers put wrong fuel in cars hundreds of times despite in-built alert in petrol caps.

When hundreds of police patrol cars broke down officers might have feared they had been infiltrated by a malignant intruder set on paralysing investigations.

However, they turned out to have a rather less sinister but perhaps more frustrating enemy: ineptitude.

For despite police managers spending thousands of pounds installing "talking" petrol caps on their vehicles which play a recorded reminder not to use the wrong fuel, petrol has been put into diesel vehicles over 300 times.

The mistakes by Essex Police were disclosed in a Freedom of Information request which showed that officers had filled up with the wrong fuel 332 times in the last seven years, costing the force £62,000.

The force claims the problem is a national issue and if the figures are replicated across the 43 forces in the country, refuelling errors are costing the taxpayer roughly £380,000 a year.

The problem in Essex was revealed in 2008, when it was disclosed that officers had failed to notice the warning "diesel" on the fuel caps of their vehicles on 222 separate occasions in the previous five years, costing £42,000.

 

[camerafodder]

Damned fuels!

 

[Sp!ke]

It doesnt help when Shell's Fuelsave Diesel is liveried in Green and Yellow instead of Black....

I know to my peril.

 

[davidjpowell]

Makes me recall a transport depot in the Manchester area.

The manager (who was rumoured to be over promoted) was boasting about the cheap fuel he had sourced.

Unfortunately he discovered too late that it was cheap diesel, because it was Petrol. Good few of the companies HGV, and company car fleet had put fuel in... (this does make me wonder how true the story was - surely they would have found out pretty soon?!).

 

[Stempies]

Why does that story not surprise me!!!

 

[Howard]

Surely there should be some sort of disciplinary if the problem occurs more than once to the same person ?

Especially given the talking petrol caps.

Perhaps some 're-education' is necessary ?

 

[Burger]

It was much easier when all we had to worry about was putting a tiger in our tank

 

[Deleted member 37751]

I have a simple way of avoiding this problem.
When refuelling, I just look at the pumps- one says DIESEL and the other says UNLEADED.

I would ban anyone that mis-fuels from driving for a year.

 

[Sp!ke]

Its 6AM, you've just woken up, you're running late. You have half a second to decide which one is unleaded.

Quickly now....

 

[Howard]

Are Shell in the habit of blurring out the fuel types ?

If you aren't 'with it' enough to read a large print of fuel type , then perhaps you shouldn't be on the road. Plod have even less excuse as they are meant to be a paragon of virtue on the road. They DO NOT get things wrong , remember

Sorry ....

 

[MOCAŠ]

Surely they should just have a different area, tucked away somewhere out of sight, for people who drive cars with diesel engines...

 

[ringway]

It doesnt help when Shell's Fuelsave Diesel is liveried in Green and Yellow instead of Black....

I know to my peril.

Me also, at a Shell filling station.

I was bursting for a pee and decided I'd fill the Sprinter with fuel before going to my next job. Luckily I realised at around the £20 mark (could have reached £90-100).
I refused to start the engine and when the tanker came to deliver fuel for the filling station I made the driver push the van out on to the road with me.

Van on to a recovery wagon and cost around £200 for that and the removal of fuel. The company that provided the service said they get an average of 10 misfuels per day. 4-5 people in the waiting room while I was there.

The urgent need for a pee disappeared when I realised what I'd done.

 

[Sp!ke]

The point I'm trying to make is that based on colours only you have to do a double take to work out which is which.

You couldnt rely on Green and Yellow for unleaded, Black for diesel and Red for Leaded anymore... not in the UK anyway.

 

[Charles Morgan]

Surely they should just have a different area, tucked away somewhere out of sight, for people who drive cars with diesel engines...

With lots of soundproofing and pong reduction too.

 

[fuzzer]

surely misfueling a police car is perverting the course of justice

 

[Bellow]

Its 6AM, you've just woken up, you're running late. You have half a second to decide which one is unleaded.

Quickly now....

Fuel up on the way home the night before - not on the way there.
No serious driver starts the day fuelling... Amateurs..

 

[wemorgan]

Its 6AM, you've just woken up, you're running late. You have half a second to decide which one is unleaded.

Quickly now....

In the photo is it really: petrol, diesel, diesel, petrol?

Not only are the colours badly chosen, but they've not even grouped the petrol and diesel together. In fact not even the VPower and FuelSave are group. I can't think of a more illogical sequence than the one they have. OK, maybe putting a Red water hose beside would be the final straw

 

[Burger]

Perhaps if the policeperson that misfuelled their vehicle had to pay for it out of their own pocket there'd be a lot less wasted tax money?

 

[MOCAŠ]

surely misfueling a police car is perverting the course of justice

No, just perverting the course of petrol. Sounds just as serious to me, though.

 

[Pringles]

I bet most of these police cars are filled up at night in the early hours when the drivers are not exactly firing on all cylinders themselves.

I tend to find that the shock of putting in £75 of petrol in car makes it a major life changing event so I have not misfuelled yet!