Bowser blues: UK Police struggle to put right fuel in cars
London: Police officers in the UK mistakenly filled patrol cars with the wrong type of fuel nearly 300 times in 2017 - at a cost of more than £50,000 ($98,000) in repairs.
Of the UK's 45 police forces, 40 responded and 33 admitted paying out for repairs to a police vehicle after a misfuelling incident last year - at an average cost of £178 a time.
Some 299 incidents of misfuelling were recorded, costing a total of £53,337.
Some UK Police have been putting the wrong type of fuel in their vehicles.
Photo: AP"It's staggering that such a simple mistake is being made almost daily," John O'Connell, chief executive of pressure group the TaxPayers' Alliance said.
"Millions of people manage this task with their own cars by taking a modicum of care - police officers should extend the same courtesy to their vehicles."
West Midlands Police fleet manager Gary Mallett said mistakes increased after 2013 when the force moved away from internal fuel sites and fuel keys to external fuel stations in a cost-cutting exercise.
A spokesman for the Met Police said that since 2008 its vehicles had been refuelled 1.5 million times and mistakes were "a tiny proportion of total refuelling".
Motoring organisations believe the problem will be eradicated completely when police forces adopt more electric cars.
"Perhaps we need a little more detective work at the pumps to ensure that the right fuel goes in the right car," AA president Edmund King said:
"Until all police cars are electric we will probably still see misfuelling problems."
PA