[Bullitt]

The perfect example of being "Penny Wise and Pound Foolish". But... and I'm going to be flamed for saying this... for Indians, time is FREE. We have loads and loads of it. As one wise man here mentioned on a another thread (I think it was SGIITK sir) "Samay anaadi anant hai".

Just look around you and try to gauge the average amount of time a typical office going chap spends chatting on the cell-phone, taking coffee/sutta breaks etc. Enhance that by a factor of 10 if it is a govt. employee.

Therefore, spending time waiting in line at the gas station is worth its while, as long as the chap can come back the next day and boast to his colleagues during his coffee/sutta break, that he managed to tank up on X liters of "cheap" fuel and save a few bucks.

Besides, 2-wheeler users need not lose any fuel in "start-stop" while in queue, they simply push the vehicle. But then, the average tank capacity of a 2 wheeler is less than 25% of that of a 4-wheeler, and therefore, the gains are also proportionately less.

Rescheduling? No problem. We are habitual offenders as far as being punctual is concerned. We give a damn for other peoples' time; If we don't value our own time, how can we value someone else's?

I think this horrible practice was first perpetuated by our (in)famous autowallas/taxiwallas, since the cost of the fuel in the tank directly affects their revenue. Slowly but surely, this menace spread to the 2-wheeler users, and now we even have 20L rupee SUVs and luxobarges queueing up for scraps. (To their credit, owners of expensive cars don't waste their own time at the gas station, they simply send the driver to do the job.)

This behavior is made worse by the fact that gas station owners slam their gates shut with "Out of Petrol" signs the moment a price hike is announced, causing people to drop everything and rush out in a mad frenzy and fill up "before the petrol pump closes".

<Sigh> End of Rant.

We should also have another thread for "How petrol pumps shut down the moment a price hike is announced."

[shashank.nk]

Unfortunately, we have done this in the past without thinking if its worth it or not. Once we did our calculations and realised its not worth all the effort considering the savings, we stopped going to the bunks as soon as a hike was announced.

The best way to protect yourself from this, is to convert your garage into all diesel cars. No issues till 2014 atleast !

[Eddy]

And thats not the only cost. The huge queues outside pumps result in traffic chaos for people who are not even going to fill up.

On the day the hike was announced, a 45 min journey took me 1.5 hours just because there were 3-4 bunks on the way that had queues spilled over to the road outside.

[rangakishen]

My views:

1 hour or so quoted above is exaggerated, atleast in my case!! Personally I've never had to wait more than 10 minutes for fuel. Even on the eve of price hike, it never is even close an hour. I live in Uttarhalli, Bangalore and tank up at kadrinahalli petrol bunk.

About savings: We have to realize not everyone have the same ideology when it comes to fuel. We here in T-BHP strongly suggest keeping tank towards full all the time. BUT!! Most of the people I have come across fill in fuel as and when required. Hence their tanks are more or less empty if not on fumes. And for a Sedan like say Sx4 petrol, tank capacity is 50lts. Lets say 40Lts top up on the eve of the recent price hike. That's 300 worth of savings. That's almost a week's worth of fuel for my daily travel!! My Cruze has a capacity of 60Lts. IF the proposed hike had come into force, that would be 5Rs rise in the price. I filled up 50Lts of fuel on the eve of the price hike (which eventually didn't happen). But lets say it did, then I'd be saving 5Lts of diesel and that amounts to 60Kms. That almost 9 days to college for me. Just imagine if i use that amount saved in my Splendor. That 200 and 240Kms worth of savings in the aforementioned cases!!

I say its worth every penny, if waiting time is around 20-30mins (I had to wait for just 10 mins to fill up my Cruze)!!

[poloman]

Indian Mentality
If they see a big queue and not be a part of it they are missing something.

Utility bills can be paid through numerous online options, still some people waste their Saturdays standing in serpentine queues.
Go to any SBI ATM on a Saturday in a city like Bangalore,you will see min 50 people queued up, where you can use the card for practically 90% of your needs directly.

[Trojan]

Voted for option 2

It is very amusing and silly to queue such an enormous amount of time for saving what might be around Rs.200 (for a 35ltr dry tank) for a top-up versus the amount of time, energy, fuel, efforts and frustration put in all to make a nice and messy affair.
While most of us always crib for the lack of time due to our busy nature of work wonder where all these thoughts go when such fuel hikes come into play.
My ideal situation would be -
Drive to fuel pump - Fill fuel - drive off (for this i fill up at night)

vs

Drive to fuel pump - wait for 1hr - get frustrated over someone jumping the queue - add to pollution and traffic - finally fill fuel - drive off

I guess we all are responsible for our actions, but we also need to think of the impact of such actions and then take steps.

Best Rgds,
Trojan

[lancer_rit]

Voted option 2. Total waste of time. As GTO pointed out, this time my car's tank was 2/3rd full. So, it would have been totally foolish unless I spotted a bunk which was kind of not crowded ;-)

One saves very little in the context of monthly and annual fuel bill even with the 8+ Rs increase in BLR.

The stupidity of it is all the traffic jam, chaos, honking and even accidents that can happen. While returning home from office at 10:30PM, I saw traffic jams/slow moving at 3 or 4 different points because of people queuing to get their fill. Easily 30-40 mins wait at the pump to get your turn. Inconvenience the general public at large...
Half hour of my time is worth way more if I spend it at office, home, reading or whatever!

[2cents]

Agreed its waste of time and not much of a saving (although, for the first time, I did add to the Q this time around, as the hike was steep, and my tank was near the blink).

On the other hand, I do think its necessary to Q up. For, its is simplest way of showing our disapproval. Imagine no one queueing up - the immediate inference by the sarkar will be that junta are ok with the hike, and perhaps feel encouraged to hike further!

[naj]

Hi!!
I voted for option 2.

Leave apart the measly saving, what about wasting precious quality time and peace of mind?
In such lines its too common to end up in a brawl,be a part of it with or watch it with disgust, when someone tries to force in front, out of turn.
Its not worth it at all just for saving 300 odd bucks.

Secondly as someone pointed out , the lines spill over on the already crowded roads and further slow down the jam packed lanes.

In Pune ,the situation went out of hand at two to three gas outlets . So much so that police vans were called up .The situation was bad on the BP outlet in Lullanagar.

Cheers!!

[mmxylorider]

I have the habit of tanking up when 1/4 of tank is empty. That means close to 10 odd lts of petrol (in Estilo) and about 15 odd for the Xylo. In effect for me it is definitely not worthwhile waiting to save that money.

In this case, the saving would have translated to max of about a litre of petrol, which can be much easily recovered by taking public transport for one day.

[itwasntme]

Originally Posted by SS-Traveller

In a lighter vein, one can say that if these people did not buy out the fuel stocks of the pumps on the day before the price rise, the pumps stand to make a neat profit on their leftover stocks once the price hike comes into effect after midnight.

All-India petrol pump strike from April 23? - Times Of India

If the above ToI article is correct (!), fuel dealers simply make a flat commision per litre sold, currently Rs 1.44 on a litre of petrol and 87 paise on diesel.

This should make them neutral to any price hike or drop, right?

Thus, in accounting lingo, they are selling 'on consignment basis' and in effect, are not the 'owners' of the fuel being sold (same is retained by the distributor company). They simply bill their principal (distributing company) at the flat rate x the quantity of fuel (litres/kilolitres) sold for that accounting period. So, while they are incentivized to sell as much VOLUMES as they can, unless there are other commercial conditions, they are agnostic about the RATE.

I personally think they shut down their pumps to avoid the inevitable unmanageable queues and petty arguments/quarrels which occur every time the prices are hiked.

[Driving_Nomad]

Voted option 2! Completely a waste of time and a test of patience.
One of my friend, an amateur driver in his one week-old Petrol car, felt bullied and frustrated at the petrol bunk. Reason? firstly, he was an amateur driver. Second, he feared that he would end up getting some scratches on the car's bumper if he responded to the bullying in the queue and almost let 10-15 bullies in their SUVs and the ever-raging Indicab and TATA Sumo cabbies to cut the queue and fill up ahead of him. Finally, he is a person who doesn't want to get into petty quarrels and make a scene there.

I asked him whether it was really worth and he was like, our system is a !

[wilful]

I agree it is just not worth the effort.
Apart from the savings, I think what prompts folk to rush to the pumps on the eve of a hike is the drive or compulsion to feel they've got the better of the system (albeit momentarily).

[nik_kapur]

Such a waste of time ! I had a friend who stood in line in the heat to get his car refueled and kept updating his BBM status to convey his frustrations to his friends ! Its a saving of Rs. 200- 300 on a full tank and you end up wasting at least Rs. 100 worth of fuel idling and crawling to get to the machine.

[mobike008]

Ah! Finally a thread on this subject.

This point has crossed my mind so many times about people waiting for hours together to fill up their tank which most likely isnt even half empty to save money. Besides, their personal agony of waiting in line, starting and stopping the car to inch forward every few minutes they also cause a major traffic jam inconviencing other people on road as those serpentine lines usually flow out to main road.

I never queue up to save a few bucks as going by "laws of probability" there is a high probability that when its your turn the petrol attendant will shoo you away saying "Stock over" apart from the misfortune that my tank is usually half empty when such news breaks out.

Btw, compared to previous hike of smaller amount/litre this time petrol pumps were fair to public by opening their pumps all through as usually the modus operandi is to immediately close the bunk at the pretext of "Out of stock" to make a killing the next day.

Voted for 2