police forces across the country put the wrong fuel into cars 299 times last year, generating repair bills of £53,000, new figures have revealed.
Officers from West Midlands police misfuelled the most cars, with 66 instances costing the force £3,737 in total. and while the Metropolitan police had fewer incidents, at 49, the cost to the capital’s police was much higher, at £17,589. police Scotland logged 16 misfueling incidents, for a total bill of £2,004.
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The figures, released to the press association following freedom of information requests, saw 40 of the UK’s 45 police forces respond, with 33 admitting events of misfuelling in 2017.
Gary Mallett, fleet manager with West Midlands Police, said misuelling events enhanced when the force stopped using internal police pumps and switched to external garages in purchase to save money.
Mallett explained: “We saw a major spike in the number of misfuels in 2013-14 and dealt with this by notifying users and local car leads of the volume and cost of the mistake. We also labelled all cars with the fuel type as a pointer of the appropriate fuel that ought to be used.” Mallett said these steps had decreased the number of misfuelling events by much more than half.
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A spokesman from the Metropolitan police said the force filled up its cars 1.5 million times last year, implying the total number of mistakes represented “a tiny proportion of total refuelling”, adding that the rate of misfuelling was decreasing each year.
The national police Chiefs’ Council echoed those sentiments, saying: “The misfuelling of police cars is relatively rare, especially when you consider that forces have thousands of cars which are in constant use and require frequent refuelling.”
Commenting on the figures, Edmund King, president of the AA, said: “Perhaps we need a little much more detective work at the pumps to guarantee that the best fuel goes in the best car.”
Is this level of misfuelling an understandable mistake or ought to police forces be doing much more to lower the number of incidents? let us know in the comments…
