The tone rises in the service stations. Faced with the shortage of fuel, impatience, anger and a feeling of helplessness punctuate the daily lives of motorists. At the pump, some insult each other, others slip discreetly into the queue… And still others are attacked by disgruntled drivers. This is the case of Alice, 23, who got the permit only a few weeks ago. For Planet, she recounts her misadventure the last time she wanted to fill up…
“I bought my car the day the strike started. It’s true that it’s bad luck, but I told myself that it was just a bad time to pass. Very quickly, I had to refuel because the garage that sold me the vehicle had left very little fuel in the tank”, contextualizes the student.
This resident of Val-de-Marne toured the surrounding towns in the hope of finding a little SP98. When she comes across an open gas station in an E.Leclerc supermarket near her home, Alice takes her troubles patiently and waits in line, like everyone else. “It was one of the first times I drove with my car. But here it is: when it was time to fill up, I learned that the pump didn’t take cash. I didn’t have my bank card. on me and I therefore found myself in difficulty, unable to pay when I had waited more than two hours”, tells us the twenty-something.
Annoyed, Alice tries to arrange with a motorist at the gas station to make him an instant bank transfer. But the wait became unbearable for the driver just behind her, who hastened to get out of his vehicle to insult and yell at the young woman…
“He got out of his car and started yelling at me, telling me that he had been waiting for hours and that I should just get out of the station if I didn’t have money to pay” , says the young woman. Gently, the latter replies that the situation was being resolved, and that it was only a matter of minutes, before getting back into her car, frightened by the driver.
“He started banging on the window, kicking the bodywork. My dogs, who were in the back seat, started barking in fear, crying. I was terrified, I didn’t want to no more getting out of the car,” says Alice.
Eventually calmed down by a gas station employee, the motorist returned to his car and Alice was able to return home safe and sound, with more fear than harm. An experience that marked the young driver, however: “I was very apprehensive about driving alone, I must say that it put me off”, she confides to us.
A few days earlier, the young woman was the victim of a bad joke…
Actively looking for fuel, Alice scoured apps and social media to find an open gas station. On her city’s Facebook group, she comes across a post that indicates that a station has just been resupplied a few blocks from her home. Neither one nor two, she sets off… And comes face to face with a completely closed station.
“There wasn’t a chat. After a few minutes, drivers started arriving. Nobody understood anything. In fact it turned out that the man who had made the post had lied, ‘for a laugh ‘”.
For now, the tank of Alice’s car is full. But the young driver does not know how long it will last…