More than 20 motorists who tailed a tanker for miles along a dual carriageway were left dismayed after it turned out to be delivering not petrol but 44 tonnes of mortar.
Drivers started following the vehicle, driven by Johnny Anderson, in the apparent hope it would lead them to a fuelling station.
But there was much consternation when they realised his journey from Wolverhampton was ending at a building site in a Northamptonshire village, with one driver remonstrating with Mr Anderson for not stopping sooner to inform the drivers following him that he was not delivering petrol.
The incident is just the latest example of how desperate some motorists have become during the continuing fuel crisis.
On Monday, the army is to begin delivering petrol and diesel to garages in a bid to combat the crisis, created by a shortfall in qualified tanker drivers.
Mr Anderson, from Harworth, in Nottinghamshire, was delivering the cement mixture to the David Wilson Homes development in Overstone on Thursday.
He was on the A43 when he first realised there was a build-up of traffic behind him.
“I noticed nobody was overtaking me and saw a string of about 20 cars,” he told the BBC. “When I eventually turned left into a road that would take me to the site entrance, all these cars turned left with me.”
As he stopped he was greeted by a chorus of car horns.
“The man at the front wound down his window and asked me which petrol station I was going to,” he said. “When I said I wasn’t, he asked me ‘Why not?’, and when I said I wasn’t carrying petrol, he actually said: ‘You could have stopped and told us you weren’t a petrol tanker.’
“I couldn't believe it, and said ‘You cannot be serious!’”
Mr Anderson said he found the incident quite funny but warned other drivers not to do the same.
“My cargo isn’t dangerous,” he said. “But if they are following a petrol tanker, their training is to call the police if they think they’re being followed.”
