For the first time in more than seven decades, drivers in Oregon are allowed to pump their own gas.
The state’s 72-year ban on self-service pumps was due in large part to safety concerns for drivers. A state law cited “increased risk of crime and the increased risk of personal injury resulting from slipping on slick surfaces.”
What an abomination of an excuse, and I live here.
Well, it may have been true 72 years ago.
There are some bizarre and pointless laws in this country.
Was probably reasonable when they were enacted - before your grandparents met.
Just because we have chiseled abs and stunning features, it doesn’t mean that we too can’t not die in a freak gasoline fight accident.
The way I heard it, if the only people pumping gas were employees, the company didn’t have to pay as much liability insurance.
Then why make it a law? Gas stations would all choose to have full service only if it was cheaper.
It’s a law specifically so that these jobs exist. It has nothing to do with liability insurance. Rather, one guy was able to lower his prices by having people pump their own gas and other gas stations didn’t like that
Reingold decided to offer the consumer a choice by opening up a 24-pump gas station on Route 17 in Hackensack. He offered gas at 18.9 cents a gallon. The only requirement was that drivers pump it themselves. They didn’t mind. They lined up for blocks.
"The other gas station operators didn’t like the competition. Someone tried shooting up Reingold’s station. But he installed bulletproof glass, so the retailers looked for a softer target - the Statehouse. The Gasoline Retailers Association prevailed upon its pals in the Legislature to push through a bill banning self-serve gas. The pretext was safety, but the Hackensack fire chief had already told all who would listen that Rein- gold’s operation was perfectly safe.
I can’t see myself headed back to Oregon any time soon, but good. It was so frustrating trying to get gas behind a line of twenty five cars being “served” by a single slack jawed yokel taking smoke breaks between each car and God help you if you needed gas at night when everybody was closed.
New Jersey gas attendants can be surly, but my experiences driving there at least moved the cars through getting gas efficiently.
As someone from NJ I agree 100% with surly. Also you can get someone weird or the guy who just wants to talk the entire time. I really do hope this changes one day.
Or the guy who tries to wash your windows then asks for a tip. I’m still annoyed at that, and it was at least 15 years ago.
That must’ve been one of the most useless regulations. Is that just about jobs? I can’t really imagine it being a security risk issue or any other reason
Yeah, jobs. And yeah, it was fucking stupid. Imagine outlawing opening the front door to any business, so that every business would have to hire greeters to generate jobs. Same same.
It’s just welfare, but in its cruelest possible form. If we’re going to require someone to piss 8 hours of their day away contributing nothing to society (worse than nothing in practice… gassing up in Oregon took FOREVER cuz you’d be stuck waiting for an attendant to serve a backup of 15 cars) just so that person can collect a pay check… why not just give them the pay check with no strings attached? Then they can use that time to improve themselves, or at the very least, not spend their waking hours inhaling gasoline fumes and ruining their knees and such.
Protect people, not jobs. Robots and AI are replacing most of us soon anyway: mandating busywork is NOT the solution to getting food on everyone’s table.
