STUDY: UK police officers confuse diesel and gas pumps four times a day, cost taxpayers £1 million

Chris Shunk — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 14:40:00 EST

Filed under: Maintenance, Etc., Government/Legal, Police/Emergency, UK, Diesel

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]

STUDY: UK police officers confuse diesel and gas pumps four times a day, cost taxpayers £1 million originally appeared on Autoblog on Tue, 09 Jun 2009 14:40:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Range Rover TDV8 features idiot-resistant fuel filler

Alex Nunez — Tue, 10 Oct 2006 09:03:00 EST

Filed under: SUV, Europe, Technology, Land Rover

The new Range Rover TDV8 is so powerful and so refined, the automaker says, that there is a distinct danger of the driver mistaking it for a gasoline-powered model and using the wrong type of fuel. The theory is that the drivers will simply be awed into delirium by the TDV8's sublime nature and that their memory of any event prior to their visit to the gas station will be effectively erased. We can just imagine the inner dialog taking place at the pump:

"Hmmm. My word... Did I buy the petrol or diesel Range Rover? It's just so splendid, I can't remember. Bah! Petrol it is!"

Moments later, a very expensive mistake transpires.

But never fear, Land Rover has come up with a way to (hopefully) eliminate the problem. The new TDV8's filler head incorporates a mechanical shutter that slams shut if a gasoline nozzle is inserted. It's quite clever, actually. The gas nozzles are thinner than the diesel nozzles, so they can extend further down the filler neck. If the nozzle passes a certain point, the shutter closes. Diesel nozzles can't engage the mechanism, all but ensuring mistake-free fueling.

We'd call the whole thing idiot-proof, but we've learned never to underestimate that particular demographic. Where there's a will -- trust us on this -- there's a way.

(Press release after the jump)

[Source: Land Rover]

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Range Rover TDV8 features idiot-resistant fuel filler originally appeared on Autoblog on Tue, 10 Oct 2006 09:03:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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