In Melbourne recent complaints that the number of drive-offs was increasing again because the police had been treating it as a tiny low-priority crime – and people had woke up to that. No indication that anybody wanted to move to pre-paid pumps though – they just wanted more police enforcement.
In fact, many of the service stations that had credit-card pumps (put in for pre-pay) removed them to get people back inside. That made my wife angry, because she loved the credit-card pumps. She had a pre-school kid in the car, and didn’t want to leave him, or to unbuckle him and take him inside.
Here in SE MN there is definitely a “pay inside” option. The clerk does activate the pump (I assume after taking pictures) I do this if I am getting a burger or something in addition to fuel.
Rural American Midwest is the same thing. I know of only a few “pay first only or by card” stations within 30 miles. Those are typically run by some big box store or are in less desirable areas of town. Sometimes it is only a certain island that requires pre-pay, usually the one furthest from the entrance door. Many rural stations that aren’t open 24 hours will leave the pumps on all night for those that use the card option.
At the time, I didn’t think of it as “like the honor system” any more than shopping at a store where you took as much as you wanted off the shelves and then paid at the register, or eating at a restaurant where you ordered whatever you want, ate it, and only paid afterward.
And yes, this is a risk with letting people pump first and pay afterward, just as shoplifters and dine-and-dashers are a risk.
Of course it happened. It was the rule pretty much everywhere I gassed up, up until I started using a credit card to pay at the pump, but I don’t remember exactly when that switchover happened.
I do, however, remember when some pumps would have little signs that said “Please pre-pay after 10:00 pm” or some such, so I assume either people were more likely to try driving off without paying when it was late at night, or it was harder to catch them then.
I too grew up in Oregon, didn’t leave until 1980, so I missed the changeover (if there was one) in other states from pump first to pay first.
My most crazy recent weirdness with pay first was at a station where the pump wouldn’t take my debit card, so I went inside, and the attendant told me I had to tell her how much to charge before I pumped my gas! She couldn’t (or wouldn’t) tell me, in her limited English, what happened if I pumped less than I told her to charge. I think two things were going on: the pump problem was temporary, and the attendant misunderstood how she was supposed to handle things. In any case, I refused to buy my gas there and went to a different station.
In British Columbia, the change to card at pump or pay then pump came in 2008, after a gas station attendant was killed trying to stop a robbery in 2005. It’s a province-wide law, called “Grant’s law,” after the young man who was killed.
I can remember when ‘full service’ didn’t cost extra and your windshield got cleaned too. It been some time since I been able to pump and pay b/c of people that pump and ran off not paying .
It’s been maybe 15 years since stations here required prepayment before pumping gas. There was a few years where we were expected to go inside and pay. That was a PITA. I was thankful when the cc option was added to the pumps.
I’ve pumped gas first and payed afterwards for most of my life. I never used full service because they charged more for the gas.
The provincial government stepped in afterwards and changed the law so that you either need to pay at the pump (process card, pump gas and then you are automatically charged for the gas that you pumped) or you need to go in to the store and prepay.
I avoid gas stations where I would have to do the latter.
I think you mean Hurricane Katrina, that’s what sent gas from like 1.50 to 4.00. It was this time that everything switched to pay-first where I live. It was probably 50/50 before that in my area.
It was probably inevitable. Like you said, this is about the time that pumps with card readers were everywhere. It’s also about the time that everyone got debit cards (hence the card readers I guess). It makes more sense to have everyone pre-pay than to have a cashier keep track of it all. Pumping first was probably a dying tradition at that point and all it needed was something to kill it off.
There are still stations I go to that will let you pump first if they recognize you. Funny, the station closest to my house doesn’t even have a card reader, it still has those pumps with the rotating numbers, but they are strictly pay first.
IIRC, some gas stations got around this by setting the pumps to liters instead of gallons. This was before 2-liter plastic pop bottles were commonplace (we were still buying soft drinks in returnable glass bottles), and most people didn’t have any idea how much a liter was.
3.875 liters per gallon, roughly. I used to compute miles per gallon for every tank of gas I bought, and had to do that conversion all the time (California had some high prices for a while!); to this day it sticks in my brain.
Pay then pump started in areas that were more urban, and areas where the price of gas was higher. When gas was only 50¢ a gallon, and a drive-off 20 gallon fillup was costing the station $10, it wasn’t that big a deal. When a drive-off 20 gallon fillup was at $1.50 or more a gallon, and costing $30 or more, then all of a sudden it got important to keep it from happening. And, of course, if you do it in a rural area, chances are everyone will know about it; in an urban area, well, not so much.
In California, the switchover happened during the 80s; I can recall in the late-80s having a co-worker who always asked for full-service at the gas station, so that he couldn’t get gas on his fancy suits. By the early-90s, he was pumping his own by necessity, and we were paying in advance in almost all cases.
I sort of have pump first, just due to the broken down status of the towns gas station. It should be pay at the pump or inside first. But the pay at the pump has not worked for about 2 years. So it’s pay inside, except they know me and I can wave to them through the window and they will turn the pump on. I’d rather have the pay at the pump.
On a trip from my small Midwestern town, I recall the first time I as asked to pre-pay at the register. I handed her a $20, and asked for a receipt. She looked dumbstruck, and asked me why. I said obviously, people in this town can’t be trusted.
A number of years back (I can’t really remember–probably more than 10, probably less than 20) there was a different incident locally. Four teenagers in a car fill up with gas and drive off without paying. Moments after they pull out of the station a police car coincidentally shows up (I don’t remember if it was traveling in the same direction or opposite) and they must have assumed that he had been called about the drive-off and somehow showed up that quickly. They put the pedal to the metal, the policeman goes after them. When he finally catches up with the car just a mile or two down the road, they had already ran off the road, hit a tree, all four teens died before anything could be done to help them. (And at least some of them didn’t die instantly, but burned alive.)
West Virginia here. When I started driving in the early nineties, it was a rarity for a place to require that payment be made first. Now, it has flipped in that it is a rarity that a place will allow you to pump first without paying. One local chain always permits pumping prior to paying and I’ve made it a point to buy gas there at all times in return for the trust that they show their customers.
Tennessee here. The vast majority of stations are pay, then pump but I patronize one station where they pump the gas for you and then you pay by cash, card or check right from the driver’s seat of your car. This station will also check your oil, tires, and radiator on request. Plus they will bring you out a soft drink from the cooler and add it on your bill.
Honestly, other than that one station, I prefer using my debit card at the pump, as it’s so much faster. I have stopped at stations that did not have that option and make a mental note not to stop there again, ever. I always get stuck behind someone who seems to do their grocery shopping at a gas station :rolleyes:.
Slight hijack: Gas stations not checking oil, tires, and coolant level is not so much a function of service going to hell as it is that modern cars do not require such frequent checks. Even my Kia will give me a readout of all of those levels, including the PSI in each tire. I don’t need Goober or Gomer to do it for me.