March 29, 2026
Map says: next pump, Atlantic
Stop Publishing Garbage Data, It's Embarrassing
Gas stations in the ocean, EVs vanishing: UK data blunders have the internet raging
TLDR: UK data bungles put gas stations in the ocean and “erased” millions of EVs, sparking outrage over trust. Commenters split between shaming sloppy work and warning that clean data is costly—some even say flawed data is better than none, but everyone wants basic checks done before publishing.
The UK’s latest data faceplant has commenters breathing fire. First, a government “fuel finder” CSV put some petrol stations in the Indian and South Atlantic oceans (someone flipped coordinates), and then a big motoring group’s chart made 1.4 million electric cars “disappear” overnight. Cue chaos: one top comment fumes that if you publish without basic checks, “you should be ashamed.” Another warns that data is what bosses and the public see—mess it up and you nuke trust. One coder even built a home tool around the fuel data and confirms it’s a mess, while the original author says the government acknowledged the bug but didn’t fix it by week’s end. Not a good look.
But there’s pushback. A pragmatic crowd argues clean data costs real human labor, and perfection isn’t free. One commenter even says it’s better to publish flawed data than hide it, fearing agencies will stop sharing to dodge bad PR. Meanwhile, the memes fly: “Welcome to Shell Atlantis,” “Thanos snapped the EVs,” and dread about an LLM slop-apocalypse—bad data feeding AI, which then feeds more bad data. The community is split, but united on one thing: do the basic checks before pressing publish. It’s not rocket science—just pride in the work.
Key Points
- •A UK government “fuel finder” CSV contained clear coordinate errors, with UK fuel stations plotted in the Indian and South Atlantic oceans.
- •The issue was reported on 22-Mar-2026 and acknowledged on 24-Mar-2026, but the 29-Mar-2026 CSV still included erroneous data.
- •At least one case showed latitude and longitude likely swapped, identified through quick plotting and histogram checks.
- •An RAC report displayed a graph implying a drop in UK battery electric vehicles from ~1.4 million (2024) to ~0.0017 million (2025), suggesting a magnitude mislabeling error.
- •The article urges basic validation, proofreading, and testing before publishing datasets and reports to preserve trust and decision quality.