A service station was prosecuted yesterday for “under-measuring” the amount of petrol and diesel going into cars. It was the first ever successful prosecution for this behaviour. The punishment? A fine of 14,000 euro.
For a long time, I have wondered if the amount of petrol going into my car was really the quantity represented in those rapidly whizzing numbers on the pump’s display. The answer, in many cases, may well be “probably not”.
Why wouldn’t petrol station owners mess around with their pumps if the fines are so trivial? Why wouldn’t this be a major problem in the state if yesterday saw the first ever successful prosecution? The message seems to have been to do whatever you like – you will get away with it.
The National Standards Agency inspected 8,000 petrol stations last year, giving out over 2,000 warnings to owners who had their pumps calibrated incorrectly. Two thousand warnings! Just how much money did this translate to? Did the errors go both ways, or just one way? I would love to see the results of a statistical analysis checking if the errors are random, or if they are biased in any way. Such a study would clearly indicate if widespread fraud was taking place.
If I were to walk into a shop and accidentally walk out of it carrying an ice-cream I had not bought, I might well end up in court. Upon conviction I would have a criminal record. It’s a crime to defraud people out of money. The same standard should apply to business owners.
Owners of petrol stations should be criminally liable for the accuracy of their petrol pumps. If their equipment is not working correctly, it should be their primary concern to fix it immediately. If, following a first inspection, favourable errors are discovered, fines should follow, relating directly to the amount of money the pumps may have taken from customers. Subsequent favourable discoveries should be referred to the DPP. Anything else is a travesty.
(Photo “Competing” by hugovk / Flickr / CC Licensed)
Passive Impressions 
So, one quarter of petrol stations inspected last year received warnings about incorrect calibration? That’s astonishing and, on the face of it, absolutely scandalous. Presumably, modern pump technology is such as to be highly accurate so I suspect that any incorrect settings are often deliberately manipulated for the benefit of the stations’ owners. Issuing warnings in such situations is not good enough. The motoring public needs to be alerted as well through the publication of an offenders list on the NSA’s website. That would quickly bring the offenders to their senses. As it stands, it seems to me that an unscrupulous station owner has little to lose by overcharging at the pumps: the chances of being inspected are remote and if you are caught you will just get a warning. It’s only if you don’t take corrective action following a warning that you’ll be prosecuted. It all seems to me like a thieves charter.
There are little stickers on most petrol pumps indicating that they have been checked by the NSAI, but these stickers rarely include a date: they are tiny and don’t remind the consumer that these inspections are quite critical. Why not a freephone number to alert the NSAI that the pump needs to be inspected?
I wrote to the NSAI and got this response which alleviates my concerns somewhat:
Dear Mr Finn
Thank you for your email of yesterday regarding petrol stations.
While a significant number of warnings are issued from time to time as a result of Legal Metrology Service inspections, they related to a range of different types of non-compliances which may vary from relatively minor types such as incorrect data plates on pumps to significant types such as measurement inaccuracy. However, our experience has shown that non-compliances relating to measurement accuracy are relatively low and corrective action is taken quickly. In many cases the station owner is unaware that the dispenser has drifted outside the legally permitted tolerances. The unit pricing of fuel is not subject to legal controls.
I want to assure you that the NSAI Legal Metrology Service continues to monitor compliance of measuring instruments throughout many trading sectors, including the Service Station sector where we have undertaken specific inspection programmes over the past 12 – 15 months.
Again thank you for your enquiry.
Yours sincerely ,
Fiona Noone
Fiona Noone
PA to Director of Legal Metrology