The past fortnight has tested South Gippsland's patience at the bowser. Prices have jumped roughly 50 per cent, some servos have run dry for hours at a time, and tempers, understandably, have frayed.

Stuart Evans of Evans Petroleum, whose sites stretch across our region, says the shortage is largely one of the Australian public’s making. "If it had not been for panic buying, we would have had plenty of product," he told Prom Coast News. Suppliers have ships on the water and Evans holds a full allocation. He says the pinch comes when customers fill 1,000-litre pods and stash drums in the woodshed. "That's what causes the outages."

His message is simple: stick to normal usage, leave the jerry cans at home, and be patient with counter staff, as 95 per cent of customers already are. Evans does not foresee the region running "dead out of fuel for weeks on end," but concedes pricing will track the conflict for as long as it lasts.

The company has enacted some restrictions, however, including limiting fuel and trailer pods to 400 litres of diesel, and closing overnight pay terminals so that fuel quantities can be monitored.

So what can households actually do? After our Facebook post suggesting an 80 km/h cruise drew spirited criticism, some readers labelled slower drivers a hazard. So Deputy Editor David Barrett took the advice for a spin. Literally.

Over a week of trips between Wonyip, Toora, Welshpool and Inverloch, the self-described "new Sunday driver" found the sky did not fall. 

“The 58-kilometre run to the Leongatha Show 'n' Shine added just nine minutes. No rude gestures were coming from passing traffic; one Weber-sized wombat was narrowly avoided.”

"It did feel slow," David admitted, "but my pockets aren't deep enough to simply not care."

“The point was never to turn every driver into a rolling roadblock. On stretches where you're not banking up traffic, easing back a notch genuinely trims fuel use. If you want to drop off from the speed limit, pull over when cars stack up behind you, and if you want to crack on, overtake only when safe to do so or wait for overtaking lanes, and above all, drive to the conditions.”

Evans, for his part, supports the idea. Transport companies are already asking drivers to sit on 90–95 km/h. "It is a saving," he said. "Take the roof rack off, lighten the boot, it all adds up."