An analysis of five years’ worth of police drive-off data has revealed August to be the peak month for fuel theft.
The news follows a Freedom of Information request submitted by Forecourt Trader to the UK’s police forces earlier in the year, with one of our questions asking officers for a month-by-month breakdown of reported drive-offs.
Of the forces that responded to us, 10 constabularies were able to provide this level of detail in a format that was easily interrogatable, revealing August to be the top month for retailers reporting drive-offs to police.
The analysis is based on records of 50,928 drive-offs reported between 2020 and 2024 to 10 constabularies, drawing on data from forces including South Yorkshire, Nottinghamshire, Gloucestershire, and Avon and Somerset.
Around 9.2% of all drive-offs (4,677 incidents) were reported to police in August, with March the next busiest month, at 8.9% (4,533 reported fuel thefts). December saw the lowest proportion of recorded drive-offs by some margin, with just 7.2% (3,678 incidents) logged by police across the five years.
Drive-offs are closely correlated with fuel prices, with motorists more likely to steal petrol and diesel as pence-per-litre numbers start to climb. And while a variety of national and international trends influence oil, and therefore retail fuel prices, the summer months typically see demand spike (with prices likely to rise) as holidaymakers and tourists stop off at forecourts. Further, the law of averages means that the more people there are on the roads, the more people there will be stealing fuel.
As for the Christmas drive-off dip, Department for Transport traffic counts were skewed by lockdowns over some of the years in question, but with the roads as busy in December 2024 as they were in January of that year, we can only put this down to seasonal good cheer – or possibly the fact that fuel prices were around 8ppl lower in December 2024 than they were in August.
