The Amazing Race

Last night it took me about an hour to travel about 15 km, to and fro, to my father-in-law's house in Dah Yeh Villa to fetch JJ home. The distance would have been much shorter if I had taken the short cut through Jalan Fung Yi Ting. But that road was jammed up by cars queuing up at the petrol station nearby. It wouldn't have taken an hour to cover 15 km, but all the petrol stations along the way were also packed. Cars were queuing up up to a mile long.

That was the amazing race by motorists caused by the sudden hike in prices of fuel throughout the nation [The Star]. Price of petrol increased by 78 sen per litre; whereas diesel saw a hike of RM1.00 per litre.

To be quite honest, I did not expect the announcement of the price hike so suddenly like that. I thought there would have been some sort of warning; say at least a few days before the hike. It's just a coincidence that I just topped up my fuel a day or two ago, so my tank was still quite full. However, even if I was down to a quarter tank, I doubt that I would've gone through that kind of fiesta at the petrol station.

Just shortly ago Mia was telling me about her colleague who queued up for petrol last night. It took her about two-and-a-half hours before it was finally her turn to fill up her tank. Apparently she was very pleased with herself for such a fine achievement. She pumped RM45 to top up her tank. But imagine, two-and-a-half hours!

So I decided to do a bit of calculation to demonstrate how much these people managed to save at the pump station. Now every litre of petrol pumped last night was a saving of 78 sen. So let's see how many litres did Mia's friend get. She pumped RM45, which meant she pumped RM45/RM1.92 = 23.44 litres of fuel into her tank. Bear in mind that for every litre, the saving was 78 sen. Therefore, last night she saved 23.44 x RM0.78 = RM18.28 at the pump station.

If I find RM18.28 lying around, I would take the trouble to pick it up. Even if I don't intend to keep it for myself (and I don't see why not) I would give it away for charity. But I don't think that I would waste two-and-a-half hours for the sake of RM18.28. And don't forget that queuing up for two-and-a-half hours also burns fuel. I see no reason why I should raise my blood pressure like that. But of course that's just me. Others don't think the same way as I do...