Panic buying hits petrol stations across Sefton and West Lancashire

IT'S a curious contradiction. Petrol is, most motorists would argue, too expensive, and yet this week scores of them have been queuing up to buy as much of it as they can.

Over the past few days we've been keeping a close eye on threats of a strike by fuel tanker drivers - and the panic buying it's prompted right across our area and other parts of Britain. It's one of those stories that affects almost everyone - even if you don't run a car yourself - and unsurprisingly plenty of you have already got in touch to share your experiences.

The thing is, of course, that panic buying is a self-fulfilling prophecy, because it'll happen as soon as you - or rather, cabinet ministers - allude to it. At the time of writing no strike has actually been confirmed, but if you'd just emerged from a cave and taken a look at the number of "SORRY, NO FUEL" signs out at the moment you'd draw a very different conclusion.

It'll also be interested to see what effect the Twitter generation has on the course of events; the last time there were widespread fuel shortages, way back in 2000, it and Facebook hadn't even been invented. It, is, in many ways, a bit like last summer's riots. Social networking is simultaneously its best mate and its sworn enemy.

Without wanting to, er, fuel the panic, we'd be interested to know how you've been affected. Get in touch via all the usual Life On Cars channels...