I’m fairly young but I can’t be crazy in remembering there used to be gas stations where you’d pump your gas first, then go inside and pay at the register right? Basically it seemed like the pumps were always “On” and you could pump as much as you want, then you would go into the station itself to pay, sort of like the honor system.
The reason I say this is because I remember watching news stories as a teen about people who would pump gas and then not pay and how this was an epidemic which makes me assume this is why I never saw any of those stations once I started to drive and now all gas stations require you to pay first.
So did this actually happen, pumping before paying, and if so when did it end? The reason I ask is because I’ve brought this up all my life in real life and on other message boards and people treated me like I was some guy making stuff up for attention but I swear it happened.
It seemed to become much more common to pay first around 2003 when the price of gas climbed steeply in response to the wars in the middle east (meaning the incentive to pump and run was higher). My recollection was that this was also around the same time that pay-at-the-pump credit card readers became ubiquitous making it more convenient (and expected) to pay first.
Wrong generation. Gas, once at around $0.70 (yes, you read that right) a gallon in the early 1970’s, quickly jumped up to well over $1.00 in the mid-1970’s with the Arab oil embargoes, which had cars lined up around the blocks hoping to get some gas, and assigned even/odd days for cars to be allowed to gas up.
Gas pumps in those days physically could not be set to a price over $.999 (there literally was not a digit to the left of the decimal point), and stations had to do makeshift things to deal with prices of $1.009 or more. Yeah, even then prices always had that nine-tenths of a cent there.
It was in that era, IIRC, that self-service gas stations began to be common. With the drastic run-up of prices in those days, and the rise of self-service around that time, I would think that pump-and-run also blossomed then. I do remember fairly clearly that pay-in-advance began to be common around that time too.
My local stations began to make the change around the early to mid nineties. I remember being really offended by it, and refusing to go back to stations that were “treating everyone like a criminal.” It was quite a few years before I was forced to accept it because pretty much everyone had updated their pumps. And by then we were all paying first with our ATM cards anyway.
[creaky old man voice ON] Why, young whippersnapper, I remember back in the day, growing up in the 60s and 70s, all the pumps were full service. The guy would pump gas, check your oil, and even wash your windows. On top of that, gas stations gave stuff away. For free! [creaky old man voice OFF]
There still are a lot of pump then pay stations around in smaller towns. In the big cities about 5-10 years ago that ended thanks to the thieves who drove off.
When paying cash I hate having to pay first. I don’t know how much total the tank is going to take. I either end up paying too much and have to go back inside for a refund or I pay too little and don’t get a completely full tank.
Interesting. All of the fuel stations in the UK are pay-after (some have pay-at-pump facilities that will take credit/debit cards)
But the process of being served means drive-offs are discouraged:
[ul]
[li]You lift the nozzle from the pump and insert it in your tank[/li][li]A terminal inside the station alerts someone that you want to be served[/li][li]They press a button to confirm start of service (I think this also triggers a photo of your vehicle reg number in many cases)[/li][li]The pump begins to work, you pump the fuel, then walk in and pay.[/li][/ul]
Yes, there are some stations with the option of paying (pre-paying?) at the pump but they’d be a uncommon.
And we are paying $1.49/litre for 95 octane unleaded no ethanol (6.78/gal imp or 5.65/gal us)
Well, I looked it up before I posted and found this graph of historical gas prices. There is definitely a spike in the 1970s but it returned to a baseline afterwards. I remember paying <$1/gallon when I first got my license in the mid-1990s when “pump first, pay second” was the norm in my small home town.
In 2012, there was a fairly high profile case in Toronto of a gas station worker getting run over by a pump-and-dash driver. That caused some rumblings about possibly changing to a pay-then-pump model. The murder trial started just this year:
Most stations in Québec are pump-then-pay, but many stations switch to pay-first in the evenings. Also, some stations located near a highway on-ramp are pay-first all the time. (Of course, most people choose to pay at the pump, and that’s always pay-first.)
I started driving in 1977, and I recall the price was around $0.65 well after that. I recall filling up my car that I got in 1978 with $0.65 gas.
The expectation that you pay in advance seemed to become much more practical once everyone started paying at the pump with a credit card.
There’s still a station in east Texas where I get gas regularly, and they haven’t yet upgraded to pay-at-the-pump. I always pay after I pump there. However I admit that there may be some older white guy privilege going on.
Also standard in Spain; when it’s not that, it’s because the attendant can take cash at the pump itself (to pay by card go into the store). In Sweden if there are actual human beings around you can pay by card at the pump or pump then pay; some stations are just an unattended pump and you pay by card. In Belgium you generally need to pay by card before pumping; some stations will take a fixed amount of cash in advance of pumping, but if you want to fill up you have to pay by card at the pump.
Some UK stations share info about ‘drive offs’ by plate numbers. If the system flags you up, the attendant won’t authorise the pump, so you have to go inside and pre-pay. The police also share information, like plates from stolen vehicles, which can wind up on the database (I presume the police can also access the records in some cases to see if and where vehicles of interest fuel up).
If you’re wondering, I know this because a policeman let me know that my car might wind up flagging up on the system as stolen after I reported the theft of my numberplate. It never did though.
[creaky old man voice OFF]