While trying to figure out whether to go down south or not, due to all
this hoohar about petrol, service stations having no fuel, and
suchlike…I found a website..looks to be worldwide, claiming to show
whether any particular servo had petrol/fuel or not…Oh Goodie!  Here
we go, just take a squiz at..Warwick would do. Showed all green..ie,
plenty.  Okay..can we verify it?  I saw a facebook post, claiming that
Texas and Goondiwindi had issues….but, when I checked, all green.
Hmm!  Not good, to lob down there, with buggerall fuel, and find there’s
nothing for the taking. Admittedly, they could have had a delivery in
the meantime, but how would you know?  Now, you’d have to know a Someone
down there, who would be happy to tell you, and wouldn’t get miffed, and
..hang up, or give you the Wrong info.  Yaas! Then…the motorists
friend, RAC..Q in this case, occurred to me.  Online, nothing on their
website was That Much Use in this situation.  Um.  Ang on, ang on, on
the back of my membership card, was a phone number. Aha!, so, it gets
rung.  The man wanted to know..full name…yep. birthdate..yep…so
thats all the info he’d need, you would have thought.  but no, address
and membership number…..ah, I don’t know that you need all that
information..I just want to know iffen there is petrol available down
south..in Warwick, for example.  Ah..we don’t collect that
information..its not part of our remit.  Sooo..Im ringing membership
help line, and they don’t have ..much helpful information..I would have
thought your members would be very interested in it. How about
suggesting to the powers that be to put it up on  the website..oh, well,
that’d take a lot of time, and I’m not sure they’d want to do it…you
could suggest it, though..oh certainly…you could even have a dedicated
hotline for members to ring, and have a dedicated person with all the
information on call…I think that might have been over the top, for
there was a silence for a few seconds. Then..you have agents in most
towns, hows about you give your guy in Warwick a ring, and he could tell
you about the fuel situation.   That met with approval, so he did. A
minute or so later..plenty of fuel, diesel is a problem in one station I
thought he said…probably in all, I’d say.
Naow, I don’t know that the RACQ would appreciate that idea getting out
and about..All you’d have to do though, is have a daily checklist for
their agents to submit online with fuel availability..and they wouldn’t
appreciate that, either!
He did suggest that I ring the particular servo and ask…strewth!  And
that apps like petrolspy might have people informing them about there
being no fuel at a particular servo…um..not guaranteed, i would have
thought.  The nationals have a website, where you can report if a servo
has no fuel….didn’t seem to be any info going our way, though…
Supposedly, hundreds are without diesel, and a fair few without
unleaded.. not overly helpful to the public, who want to know specifics!
I did have fun with the RACQ guy, though.  Chortle!