The Japan Automobile Federation (JAF) is reporting a sharp rise in indicident where cars are breaking down on the road because their owners, faced with rising fuel prices, filled them up with lower cost light diesel oil instead of gasoline.

JAF officials said that between April and June this year, there were 153 cases in Tokyo, Chiba, Yamanashi and Kanagawa prefectures in which people called for help after filling their vehicles with the wrong type of fuel. In most of the cases, people had phoned for help saying that after they filled their gas tanks, their cars wouldn’t accelerate properly.

Besides rising fuel prices, another factor being blamed for the problem is the increase self-service gasoline stations.

Oil Information Center officials said that while the overall number of gas stations in Japan has decreased since peaking in 1994, about 6,000 self-service gas stations have appeared in the 10 years since 1998.

The head of one gas station in the Musashino district of Tokyo said that it appeared there were many people who lacked experience when it came to filling their gas tanks.

“Here we have workers stand by when drivers fill up on gas so they don’t make mistakes, but recently there have been a lot of people saying, ‘Please tell me what to do,’ and it seems that the number of first-time customers is increasing,” the has station head said.

JAF officials say the reason people fill their gas tanks with the wrong fuel basically comes from inattention. Some drivers said they filled up on light oil because they were driving light[-weight] vehicles, and others said they chose the fuel because it was the cheapest.

Putting light diesel oil in a vehicle with a gasoline engine can cause the emission of white smoke and even cause the engine to stop. Putting gasoline into a diesel engine vehicle can damage the engine.