The current Facebook twaddle is a meme about how 37% of all the cars in Oregon are now inoperative because the poor, befuddled Oregonian drivers had to pump their gas for the first time and automatically reached for the green handled pump. Get it? Because they think everything should be green! Yuck yuck!
My big problem with the Oregon pump law is that the state is too far across to get from California to Washington without filling up.
About 10 years ago I took a new job and needed to return to my home state of TX from AK. I took the ferry to Bellingham and drove from there.
While in OR I stopped for gas, got out and tried to start pumping. A kid comes running out of the station screaming Wait! Wait!..
Imagine my surprise.
I’d never heard of such foolishness…
I usually get my gas at a station that has full service and charges 1/2 cent a liter more than the self-service across the street. It is really worth it.
The comment about NJ having the cheapest prices is correct. When I drive to NYC, I end up on the Palisades and fill at the last station in NJ, which is very crowded. On the other hand, when I was growing up in Philly, Jersey was consistently a nickel a gallon higher than us, so we made sure to have a full tank when driving down the shore. They had legal price fixing there.
When I was in Switzerland in 1970, they already had unattended stations. You dropped a five franc coin in a box and got $1.15 worth of gas.
Here’s the thing, having lived here, and not here, I have reached the following conclusions. Can everyone who is not disabled pump their own gas if allowed? Yes. Does it rain a lot in Oregon? Yes. Does it rain so much in Oregon that the sun is rare sight November to May? Yes. Do you like standing in the rain to pump gas? No? Me neither. Ditto snow, freezing fog, sleet, and so on.
I like having some nice person pump my gas, especially when the weather is crap. It doesn’t make me feel like less of an adult to have them do this. It makes me feel warm and dry. Slightly guilty, but dry.
Mock all you want, but I’ll still be in my warm, dry car.
I don’t remember the last time I got rained on whilst pumping gas. Don’t most gas stations nowadays have roofs over the pump area?
It may be a question of region, type of rain, size of roof and other variances. Here I would say, roof or not, you’re going to get wet. In Missouri, roof or not, I got wet, and snowy, and cold.
Well, maybe the idiots were right. Shocking footage has been obtained of Oregonians attempting to use a self-service station.
I don’t think anyone has a problem with those people that choose to have an attendant pump the gas for them. The issue, at least for me, is forcing, until Jan 1st, the entire state to only be able to have an attendant pump the gas.
Outstanding!
It seems that the teeming masses really prefer self-pumping, once they get the hang of it.
IIRC, when self-pumping became a thing in California, all stations made it optional: There was at least one island of self-service pumps and at least one island of attendant-serviced pumps. The self-service was a bit cheaper per gallon. Presumably (?) the slightly-more-expensive attended pumps should have paid for the employees to operate them, so (again, presumably) the station owners wouldn’t have gone ALL self-serv just to reduce staffing expense.
Anyway, self-serv seems to have won out. Enough customers went there, to the point where attended pumps have mostly disappeared.
Remember when gas stations also gave out free road maps?
Wouldn’t Darwin say, this is just as it should be?
Having had to sleep upright in a moving truck cab with a friend and two cats because we were stranded at a rural Oregon station until morning when someone appeared to pump (we had gas but not enough to get to the next presumably all-night station, in the days before smart phones), I approve. Also, as I’ve said before, Oregon natives look at you with awe and respect if you can leap out and pump your own gas.
I see you’ve visited my town.
No one who has had to drive US-26 after 10pm would complain about this law. After my GPS took me around a town with a working gas pump I had to camp out at a gas station until they opened.
I heard about this months ago and immediately started planning my vacation. I arrived in Oregon 12/31 and spent the night in a cheap motel. Just before first light on 1/1 I went to the nearest now-self-serve-station, took off all my clothes, held up a sign reading “Regular $2.39” so that it covered me from head to waist and stood between the gas pumps.
I got 73 hand jobs that day alone. It would have been the perfect vacation except for that one guy who apparently mistook my ass crack for the squeegee holder…
??? GasBuddy says that the cheapest gas in NJ right now is $2.39 and that the cheapest in NC is $2.19. (Both are at Costcos, so…whatever.) Did NC get kicked out of the East Coast Club recently?
Self-serve was a negative for my family when it came to Melbourne ~40 years ago.
As part of the re-regulation they regulated that self-serve pumps couldn’t click “on”, you had to hold the nozzle the whole time. My dad used to always get out of the car and start the pump, then do other things (like filling out the log book, checking tires etc).
They’ve recently re-legalized non-attended filling, but only for high-speed diesel (ie trucks) I assume they use a lock-on nozzle, but I’ve never looked.
ZonexandScout:
It’s been a long time since I’ve been in NC, so I have to admit that states down south were not on my mind. Mea culpa.
I shall continue to sit in my car while my gas gets pumped like a gentleman.
Am I understanding this right? Self-serve gas is now an option in Oregon, but attendant pumping is still allowed?
Because in NJ self-serve is legally not an option. I grew up in Michigan where it’s mandatory.
ISTM Oregon now has the best of both worlds. Self-serve when you’re in a hurry and attendant pumping when it’s bitch-ass cold.