Wednesday, June 4, 2008

A Night Of Near Mayhem

Almost everybody knows that the price of petrol was going up at midnight tonight by 78 sen. It was too big an increase so everybody rushed out to fill up their tanks and some their containers at the old rate of RM1.92 per liter for the higher 97 octane grade petrol. The lower grade will also increase by the same margin and diesel by a ringgit.

In Pasir Mas the rush started as early as 5.oo PM. It was slightly 3.oo PM that SMS messages were received telling us about the impending rise in price. I didn't go at that time because I wanted to go later thinking that the rush will be reduced somewhat after the maghrib prayers. How wrong I was as the queue had started building up and cars lined up for almost half a km on both side of any of the six petrol stations in or near the town. See the following pictures and their caption to capture the mood on the night prior to the price increase. Full story and captions will be added tomorrow.



Petronas Lemal. Luckily the police were there to direct traffic.


Petronas Jias. Whole road was jammed as cars were four abreast.


Cars on the road in Jias.

Esso Mekasar. Many motorist went agains the flow of traffic by coming in through the exit to the station jamming up the whole station. How silly some people can be.


Traffic jam going into Pasir Mas at the cemetery in Lemal.


Situation at Petronas Jias.


By 10.oo PM Petronas Jias ran dry and peace reigned. Tonight I learnt how to use my Sony Alpha 350 at night without flash. I realized how good the Bionz engine worked to process the image.


The situation at Caltex Jias is under control.





BHPetrol
Road infront of BHPetrol

Bikers at Caltex at the only pump dedicated to motorbikes. The pump went dry just after I managed to fill up my bike. How lucky can I be?

Esso Mekasar. Motorists going againt the flow of traffic.
Petronas Lemal
The price increase should be more gradual. By being gradual people wont be rushing to fill up their vehicles as the total gain wont be substantial. Maybe this is already gradual as the full price is yet to be reached come August 2008.
Tonight the BN government lost its popularity even with their own members.
Update:
When I checked this morning only Shell Pasir Mas wasn't selling any fuel as they ran dry at 10.30 PM last night. I guess the rest didn't run dry but close shop when they reached their last hour of operation.The Shell Station is a 24 hr service station and they will live up to that promise that service will be provided till the last drop. Now they will have to wait for their new supply which will only come this evening. Those who carried over stock from last night harvest a profit of 78 sen per liter of petrol sold today.

47 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wow. It's a mad mad mad rush everywhere including Pasir Mas. In JB, people were badly pumping for the badly needed petrol pumping. The whole commotion was amusing as if diesel is a life-or-death matter.

ZABS said...

Salam Zawi,
Ini berlaku di seluruh Malaysia tentunya.
Di KL, dengan jumlah kenderaan yang paling banyak, perebutan untuk mengisi penuh tangki minyak kereta terasa lebih lebih mencabar tentunya.
Jam dimana-mana, hinggakan yang tidak berniat mengisi minyak pun tersangkut sama.
Saya tidak berpeluang berbuat begitu, kerana pagi tadi telah mengisi penuh minyak dengan selesanaya.

Unknown said...

Alamak aiii, ramainya orang!
The difference of the full tank price between the new price and the previous would be RM30++ right?
Lepas ni barang dapur pulak naik harga. Count on that. Price hike frenzy getting people on the verge of explosion...i can hear the countdown clock tickling...
Sekarang nak jalan mana2 nak bubuh minyak 10 ringgit serius dah tak releven (quotation; Mueiz).

Pak Zawi said...

Hilmi,
It happened all over Malaysia only the severity of the jam differs. It takes only one crazy motorist to go via the exit to the station for the rest to follow and create a solid jam inside the station. That was what happened last night in Pasir Mas until the police came. I guess the police did not anticipate such a problem until they were called.

Pak Zawi said...

Zabs,
Anak saya call dari KL dia kata di Shah Alam tidak lah sebegitu teruk. Mungkin ramai telah mengisi minyak lebih awal kerana mendapat maklumat awal. Lagi pula kebanyakan jalan di bandar besar adalah one way sedangkan di Pasir Mas adalah 2 way dan bila yang dari seberang jalan membelok, ini yang punca jalan jam.
Tahniah kerana ada proactive.
Kenaikan yang terlalu tinggi membuatkan pengguna merasakan berbaloi untuk mengisi minyak sepenuhnya semalam.

Pak Zawi said...

Akmal,
It gambar dalam stesyen. Di sepanjang jalan depan stesyen que adalah sepanjang 1 km. Keadaan jalan besesak bermula dari kawasan rumah saya di Kasa hingga ke Roundabout di Lemal. Segala jalan belakang digunakan sepenuhnya untuk mengelak dari jam. Malangnya jalan belakang pun jam juga.
Bergantung pada saiz tangki. Saya isi dua buah kereta semalam dan dapat masukkan 50 liter. Ini bermakna saya untung hampir RM40 jika dibandingkan saya mengisi hari ini. Not bad eh?
Semua akan naik terutamanya apabila Tenaga mengumumkan tarif baru letrik nanti. Macam mana la rakyat mskin nak survive.
Motorsikal amat laku sekarang sebab orang akan menggunakan kenderaan kecil untuk kemana mana yang sesuai jika perjalanan melibatkan kurang dua orang. Kuranglah nanti kesesakan jalan raya.

LITTLE DEWA said...

uncle
darn! i made a terrible terrible mistake last nite!
my bro is here, all the way fr jb so we went 2 hav dinner @ AM tarbush
guess wat happened?
the journey (pengkalan chepa-renaissance) that usually takes only 15 min became 1 hour!
gosh! how could i b sooo naive thinking those smses were just for fun?
& yes uncle... i like the previous template more :)
it looked easy on the eyes

drizzt said...

Knee jerk reaction from a "knee cap" gomen! Nuff said.

Now it seems like the 25% wage increase for goverment servants to increase the standard of living purely a joke.

Pak Zawi said...

Little Dewa,
Your 1 hour is nothing compared to two hours some people had to endure from what stories I heard at my surau after the Subuh prayers.
You like the old one better? I dont have the heart to ask Akmal to redo it again. Anyway we can improve on the present one? I would like to accomodate everyone but let us use this for a bit longer and let us get moore opinions before I revert OK?

Pak Zawi said...

drizzter,
We should have changed the government at the last election. Enuff said hehehehe.

LITTLE DEWA said...

uncle
i like the last bit hihihi...
but i suppose, whoever up there pon, tis thing is inevitable, myk tetap kene naik jugak
it's world's crisis, not ours only
my hubby's now in indo, imagine ppl there who barely bake RM3 in a day... how r they gonna survive this?
with food crisis lagi...

Pak Zawi said...

Little Dewa,
The Government of the day must govern with prudence. Lots of wastage in unnecessary projects and project costs being jacked up sky high to benefit cronies and family members. Certain people and companies are allowed to control the supply and price of building materials and soon all things will become expensive and Malaysia wont be competitive anymore. Your generation will suffer the most as I maynot live to see the day that we are no different from Indonesia or even Bangladesh.

Pi Bani said...

Mak aih... besarnya font, memang sesuailah untuk yang mata dah makin rabun macam I ni... :)

Ipoh pun jam jugak, tapi alhamdulillah drivers were disciplined enough not to potong queue. Itu pun I went out about 8.20pm and only managed to come home at 9.40 pm. Yang kesiannya, those yang rumah dekat dengan petrol station, nak balik rumah sendiri pun susah!

drizzt said...

Pak Zawi,

We have tried, but it seems like 5 states + 1 federal territory still not good enuff to threaten 'them' to put a 'thinking cap' before doing something this harsh.

Can't wait for GE13 to finish off the job. Haha

Pak Zawi said...

Pi,
Dok cuba guna font besar sebab bila font kecik nak baca sendiri pun susah walaupun dengan menggunakan kacamata power 250.
Pi pun untung la jaga yer.
Kesian betul mereka yang tak dapat masuk ke rumah sendiri kerana motorist block the entance ye.

Pak Zawi said...

Drizzter,
We will finish them off this 13th GE. Dunno what the BR are doing now to push them to call a snap election so that we can finish them off earlier.
High time somebody with some sense is put in place as PM. UMNO seems to be scraping he bottom of the barrel to find one and this is the best that they have.

pB said...

SALAM POK AWI

mujo lar pagi smalae tu , tergerok hati nok g isi penuh minyok kreto.

jadi tok la raso ralat sangat.


payoh la lepah ni nok jalae jauh , sebab perbelanjaae minyok akae naik.

Pak Zawi said...

pB,
Alhamdulillah la pB tak susoh semale. Kalu nak jale-jale keno mikir sikit lo ni. Sayo gun motorsikal lamo doh. Kalu dekat-dekat guna basikal jah.

Lee said...

Hi Zawi, enjoyed looking at your new digital pictures.
Well taken, macham National Geographic on location shoot, ha ha.
Wow! Your gas naik one shot .78 cents? Sini naik slow and easy 1 cent or two cents at a time. Maybe because Mat sallehs have weak hearts.
But for you riding a bike often, won't feel the pinch that much.
When we arrived in Canada 22 years ago, our gas price was .34 cents a litre.
Today, its $1.26 a litre....but one advantage disini is the different gas stations compete with each other, and some might even be 3 to 5 cents less.
So while driving, we tend to keep eyes open see mana satu station cheaper than the other, I of course sometime da terlepas the station only remember as was instead admiring an SYT at the opposite bustop, ha ha.
Anyway, to calm your nerves, my Lincoln car full tank 'yam seng' 78 liters! And at $1.26 a litre...$98 full tank. In your Ringgit it will be, rgt 3.26 satu $1 Cdn, = Ringgit 319 !!!, if my poor arithmetic is correct.
To avoid having heart palpitations when filling gas for my car, I don't nanti till even half tank, but fill up as and when see 1/4 tank. This way my breathing not affected, arhaaa ha ha. And I get only 18 miles to the gallon too.
Thus that Nikon D300 in my dreams will have to be
put off, ha ha.
Have fun with your camera, Zawi, Lee.

Pak Zawi said...

Lee,
Eversince I got the camera, I never leavehome without it. In case I see something worth taking picture, I will do it. I am now a citizen reporter as Pak Idrus term it hehehehehe.
Why do you need sucha big car? Find one that is frugal on petrol and you can buy your Nikon from the saving you make.
Our government should have increased the fuel price gradually and thus not subject people like me to a heftic 78 sen a litre. That shows that they have no sense of pity towards the rakyat. Why must they make so much profit for Petronas? Where is the profit going? The latest figure is RM140 billion profit as against to RM80 billion achived in the same period last year. That uch money could make our people suffer less. Soon the price of fuel will come to the market price but we suffer more because we pay more for petrol as well as for other things which are heavily taxed or tolled.
I have nowhere to go so I will have to bear with it.
My only consolation is I have a new toy toplay with and keep me occupied hehehehehe.
Have agood day my friend.

Unknown said...

Pak Zawi,
Kan elok guna basikal.Sekarang berlambak basikal buatan Cina jual di Kuching.Pak lah suroh tukar life style..stuju tak.I'm among the crowd of 2km long Q last night.Apa boleh buat nasib badan.

Fauziah Ismail said...

Salam Pak Zawi
I find it hilarious that everytime there is a hike in pump prices people rush to the petrol station before midnight.
When I asked my friends. "Penuh tangki malam ni boleh tahan ke setahun?", they didn't find it amusing.
The hike is inevitable.

Pak Zawi said...

Awang,
I have been a motorbike user for several years and bicycle user for almost 2 yrs. Depending on the weather and distance I will choose which bike be it motorised or pedal power. Another condition is whether my gout is not acting up hehehehe.
You have your China bikes too there? It is exactly those Chian bikes that are used here too. I used to have 10 of them and sold a few to my rlatives and gave a few to my children and grandchildren. I still have 6 of them. Yes I like bicycles hahahaha. This reminds me to post a blog on the passion of biking.
I was in a queue too but it wasnt for long.

Pak Zawi said...

Fauziah,
For the first time last night I became one of them. Never did it at the last hike of 30 sen as I thought the amount saved wont be much. Last night was a different case as a saving of 78 sen a litre saved me RM39.00 after we purchased 50 litres compared to what I would have paid if I were to fill up today. I could have saved more if the other car was not full.
I agree the hike was inevitable but the rush can be avoided if the increment was made gradually at say 20 sen a week so that this mad rush wont involve such meek people like me hehehehehe. Anyway I was out there taking pictures and I did enjoy the scene but really hate those queue jumpers who have no qualms at all about other peoples suffering after such a long wait.

Nik Bahrum Bin Nik Abdullah said...

Saya semalam di Pengkalan Chepa pun macam tu juga. Dari rumah di Sabak ingat nak buat U turn untuk mesyuarat di Bangunan Purnama. Malangnya kereta penuh bersesak nak masuk Petronas PC. Terus letak kereta depan Hyper Market Pantai Timur.

Rupa-rupanya saya dengar lepas tu, stesen minyak tu dah tutup operasi dari petang lagi. Hok duduk belakangni punyalah rak kononnya nak tunggu giliran.

Jadinya,nak jimat RM30 'terrugi' RM10.

Hussin said...

Sdra Zawi,

It was a nationwide phenomena. To me the increase was inevitable and there is nothing anyone can do about it, certainly not Pak Lah. Just because Malaysia is a net exporting oil country, doesn't mean we should continue enjoying cheap fuel to the detriment of our country's future. The artificially low prices have produced too much wastage at the expense of the really needy.

Having said that, I think the government has not done it properly. The massive one time increase have caused the mayhem that you wrote about. I wonder how much fuel was wasted by the numerous vehicles waiting to get to the fuel stations and also others stuck in the jams nation wide.

Another more important issue is what the government does with the huge Petronas profits arising out of the high oil prices. They must use it to put the country on a strong footing and also help the needy.

Will they do it? Maybe we are asking too much.

Sallam

Pak Zawi said...

Nik,
Nasib badan. Rasanya stesyen tersebut tak habis minyak tetapi tutup perniagaan kerana nak kaut untung lebih jika jual keesokan harinya. Boikot aje stesyen itu.

Pak Zawi said...

hussin,
Agreed fully with what you said. Increasing 78 sen in one go is no go.
If they have managed the Petronas money well, Malaysia could be a very rich country with all the public infrastructure in place. So what have we spent the money on? We all know nothing as only thePM is privy to such informations.

louis said...

Hi Zawi,

What you witnessed last night and reported in your blog was a replay of what happened here in the US in the 1970's during the Oil Embargo.

I was in lines like those myself, sometimes at 1:00am.

As with our situation, yours will blow over too and some valuable lessons may even be learnt from the experience.

Pak Zawi said...

louis,
In our case itwasnt so bad as the time frame for the queuing up was only till midnight or even earlier depending on the closure of the gas station or the drying up of the stock. So our experience was mild compared to yours.
Lots of lessons were learnt but I doubt that they will take heed from it.
Take care.

Pak Zawi said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Rusdi Abu Bakar said...

i do not understand with our Gov. what the F*** are they doing, they just thinking to live in a few days ahead. this is not a first time happen to our country, but they not take a lesson at all. now, petronas is no more valuable for malaysian, nothing we can proud Petronas belongs to us. what petronas can doing? i did not blame petronas, they doing well their jobs. the f**king gov & PM, where you spend the money? where royalty to T'Ganu, where is the Petronas Profit? stop to give bonous 12 / 13 month to the staff. please see the peple below.

My fellow Malaysia, we need to fight our right! JANGAN MUDAH LUPA!

Pak Zawi said...

Rusdi,
Petronas pays lots of dividend to the government as profit. You are right they did their function very well in fact Petronas brought home lots of money from its overseas operations. Petronas trained lots of Malaysian children. We wont argue with that.
If the moeny is given to the state to spend, they are more accountable than the Federal Government. At least the rakyat will know what happened to those money that Petronas paid out.

zewt said...

it's about time...

Pak Zawi said...

zewt,
Your comment can go so many ways hehehehe. I bet we concur on the words to follow right?

Kerp (Ph.D) said...

yea, it was madness. the stretch along the road leading to my place was congested because there were 2 petrol station on the both sides of the highway. and due to the heavy rain last night made it worse.

a global issue this is i know, but if we had a much better person as the decision-maker, the impact wouldnt be as hard as this.

Pak Zawi said...

kerp,
It was inevtable no doubt but why not give a longer notice so that the mad rush can be spread over a longer period? All I can say is that the decision maker is ill advised.

Unknown said...

bila beras naik - pak menteri kata kurangkan makan nasik.
bila minyak naik - ada ka kata2 mutiara dari man2 pak menteri pak zawi..?
ambo baru jah balek dari travel, so belum lagi update diri sendiri dengan berita mutakhir. baca blog pak zawi jah dulu nie.hehehe.

yes, citizen repoter! very appropriate.

boleh ko, gi ko kemubu cari sekolah lamo ambo tu cubo but repot jugok. raso rindu sangat nie nak tgk gambar sek keb pangkal kalong tu....
kalu buleh interview lah sekali dua tigo oghe cikgu ssitu..hehehe
ooopsss lupa, jauh tu nock gi tu...minyok mahal lorr nie....hehehe
naik eprahu la deh pak zawi!!! tak kena minyak...
mungkin nanti pak perdana akan cadangkan gali buat sungai...supaya rakyat semua boleh kayuh perahu....jimat pitih....ubah cara hidup. bukankah, feverit pak perdana tu menyuruh rakyat mengubah cara hidup!!!

pakpayne

Pak Zawi said...

Pakpayne,
Selamat pulang.
Terima kasihlah kerana singgah rumah ambo dulu sebelum sampai ghumah Pakpayne. Tak apa ambo akan ke Sekolah Pangkal Kalong di Kemubu tu. Kalu ambo gi ngan basikal seperti pos ambo terbaru tak do la belanjo minyak. Cuma tanbang bot penambang di Pasir Parit ko kemubu tu jah la. Tak berapa sen nyoh. Demi Pakpayne ambo akan buat sebelum ambo gi Labuan.
Kalau masuk Pakpayne- bakpo tolong tengokla hok ambo tulis tu boleh terima atau tidak. Kalu buleh gak tak sia sia la ambo buat. Kalu tidak gak nyanyo la kat ambo.

Unknown said...

:-) eh...pakzawi....hock pakzawi tulih tu doh masuk doh tu...memang kata2 mutiara tu...boleh guna sangat2 tuh..
pedoman for ourselves, colleagues, dan anak2.

terimakasih.

pakpayne

Pak Zawi said...

Pakpayne,
Ambo tengok doh sebelum gi semaye Jumaat tadi. Gi kat blog pakpayne selepas tulis tadi tu yang jadi gitu tu.

svllee said...

Hi Pak Zawi, wow, I didn't know it was soo bad, I mean the rush to fill up and all that, over the whole country. RM30+ per full tank savings is quite alot, I hope people weren't bringing jerry cans and filling them up too! As many people have commented, that it is inevitable that fuel prices will go up to market levels, the counrty has been enjoying subsidies for so many years now, and it has finally caught up.I agree that it should have been done gradually, 40% instantly is rather high. I hope the car users would seriously think about using more fuel efficient cars, after all, oil is a finite product, if not this generation, it will surely be the next 2 or 3 that will see the depletion of resources.

You guys are still having it good! Its equivalent to RM7.50/litre here in the UK! and about 60% is Govt tax.

Great photos of the jams, thanks, hope you didn't stick out snapping away, like a reporter!

Pak Zawi said...

svllee,
The rush was real bad compared to previous hike because of the significant increase. I didnt bother myself in the previous hikes.
No jerry can purchase were entertained so it didn't add to the problem. Some stations stopped selling petrol to sell them the next day for a higher profit. 30 of them in Kelantan alone were reported to have done that and the The Ministry of Trade were informed about it. Most glaring was the Petronas Service Station in Jias which stopped selling as early as 10.00 PM. Initially I thought they ran out of stock but I saw them selling again the first thing in the morning indicating that they had stock from the previous day. Hopefully they will come down hard on them. That should teach them a lesson.
Agree with you that petrol should be sold at market rate but they have to do that gradually so that people can make adjustments. Beside that the Government must improve the public transportation so that people can have alternative transport especially for the big cities like KL. The fact that the government failed to do anything with the 4 billion ringgit saved in the last excercise made many people suspicious of what they did with the saving. One obvious thing they did was to bail out PKFZ to the tune of 4.7 billion ringgit without taking any action on the robbers. That tantamount to condoning the act of robbing the country's coffer. Is that good governance?
As to the photos, I was just learning to take night scenes. I think I learnt a few lessons like bringing my tripod along to shoot and use better settings like higher ISO setting which my camera is capable of doing. I should know that my camera can go up to ISO 3200. In the old film days ISO 400 was the maximum film we lay our hands on. Thats technology right?
Coming from you, thse compliments means so much to me. I promise to strive harder. Based on your previous recconmendation, I bought myself an external hard disk of 160 GB to store my pictures in. Dunno how long that may last but deeting some pictures of lower quality may save me some space. My only problem is I like all the pictures that I took hehehe.

rauhunt said...

Lepah ni ..

Nasik blauk
Nasik krabu
Akok kkedut
Nasi tumpang
Taik itik
Milo O
Kopi O

semuo naik hargo

Teh O Bing kure manih pon akan naik hargo

Pak Zawi said...

Rauhunt,
Semuanya dah naik dah.

Unknown said...

I was away to Taman Negara last Wednesday. No wonder the Caltex petrol kiosk at Lata Rek closed shop. I think they must have foresee the situation. My petrol was running out at that time. Somehow I managed to drive until Gua Musang to get my petrol. At that time, the warning light was already blinking. I drove more than 10kms to finally fill my tank. At 6pm , I received the SMS regarding the price hike. But nothing I can do, as the nearest petrol kiosk to Kuala Tahan is 60km away.

Pak Zawi said...

Lim,
You were lucky since your car didn't stall due to lack of fuel as Lata Rek was still a long way from Gua Musang. I doubt that any car has that much reserve in the tank to last that distance? Or do you mean that petrol kiosk near Renok Baru which is about 15 km from Gua Musang?
Which resort did you stay in at Kuala Tahan? Pakpayne wants me to take him to Taman Negara but I was thinking of taking him to Taman Negara Merapoh and not Kuala Tahan as Kuala Tahan is so commercialised already whereas Merapoh is still natural. Furthermore the ikan kelah can be sighted there especially during feeding times.