Via Tatum Report:
C. Douglas Golden, The Western Journal
I grew up in New Jersey — which, along with Oregon, is one of the two states that ban or limit motorists’ ability to pump their own gas.
In 1949, Garden State lawmakers passed the Retail Gasoline Dispensing Safety Act, ostensibly pitched as a way to keep us rubes from setting ourselves aflame. In reality, it was unalloyed protectionism.
According to Mental Floss, a website specializing in little-known facts, a New Jersey gas station owner began attracting business by offering lower prices for self-service at a time when pumping your own gas was unheard of. Instead of competing with him, other gas station owners did the next best thing: They got politicians in Trenton to outlaw the practice. read more
Wow!
I forgot that there were still places that being a Gas Jockey was a Skilled Trade that took Minutes of In Class & Practical Training with a Government Test.
Still, imagine the Carnage for the next few months.
How hard is it to pump gas, I grew up pumping gas at my dads Shell station. It’s a no brainer and Oregon is a friggin nanny state that is afraid to let the peons pump their own gas. But if you have a commercial gas card like we do for business you can pump your own gas gas at certain gas stations in Oregon, otherwise you’re deemed to be too stupid to pump gas.
The thing about doing it yourself is that they won’t cut you a penny on the price.
Not that big of a deal to do yourself. It’s just going to put people out of work and save us nothing.
@geoff
NEW JERSEY HARD!
I looked it up a few days ago, there was actually a federal law in 1949 requiring that a ‘professional’ pump the gas, obviously rescinded. At this point NJ still mandates it, OR allows you to pump your own if you wish – but only in low-population counties. And one town in NY for no particular reason.
I can only assume that the ‘professional’ is certified and not just some teenage kid that started yesterday.
I was the Gas Island attendant at a Tenneco station in Georgia back in the late 70’s. Self-serve was a primitive affair back then. I had to unlock the pump with a key for each customer, the hoses were too short to reach across the car if a customer pulled in the wrong way (which happened all the damn time) and the safety shutoff was a joke. The cars all leaked a lot more oil back then, too. And there was still leaded gas.
Every week, the store supply truck would bring a giant bag of cat litter which we kept in a steel drum in the monkey shack. It was used to soak up the frequent gas spills caused by customers not paying attention after they set the auto-pump latch and got busy smoking their cig. Or held the nozzle with one hand while they puffed with the other.
The worst were the cars with the fill pipe behind the license plate with the smoking customer running the auto-fill while the car was idling. And you couldn’t make them stop smoking or shut off the engine, or they’d rage up.
And they all bitched about how they had to pay so much for has and then had to pump it themselves. Yes, those were some good times.
Geoff, you’re a little bit harsh there. When I was a teenager I worked at “Service” station, and several nit wits tried to pump their own gas with disasterous results. One time and idiot doused me with gas before I could turn the pump off. I stuck my head under faucet in the big sink in the back for 20 minutes before my blindness subsided. There are legit reasons to restrict who can pump gas. Just sayin’
I can’t remember anyone teaching me how to pump gas. I didn’t have to take a test or get a license. Never had a problem with it either. How stupid do you have to think others are in order to think they will need an instructional video? This just shows how dumb the supposed elites think we are.
@ Cynic
The supposed elites have probably never pumped their own gas (or watered their own lawn), don’t know how, and assume the rest of us are as ignorant as they are.
For as long as I’ve been in Oregon, the thinking has always been that the average resident is too stupid or lazy to pump their own gas, or that gas jockeys are an occupation somehow worthy of state protection. Then there are the warnings of utter carnage sure to follow if the masses were ever allowed to pump their own gas, which most Oregonians seemed to believe for some reason, even tho’ it smeared them all as ham-fisted morons. The only conclusion I ever reached is that the average Oregonian is a special kind of stupid.
I live here. Yes, people are that stoopid.
I drove through Oregon when I lived in Utah. Stopped for fuel and started pumping my own and the guy in the store had a fit! I didn’t know Oregon was that stupid. No one had pumped gas for me since the ear;y 70’s. Good to see IQ’s rising a little.
In 2010 I drove my brother’s diesel Bug from California to Washington. I stopped to fuel up in the boonies of Oregon on highway 97. The diesel pump was out back. I knew mere mortals were not supposed to pump their own fuel so I waited for someone to come and do it. Nobody ever did so I said f(iretr)uck it and did it my self.
No problem, and this was before Oregon relaxed the rules. Maybe it was gasoline people were not supposed to pump but diesel was OK.
Scotland does that, too!
An entire generation of Orogonians who can’t put gas in their car without instructions.
Or pour piss out of their boot either.
Still, it was nice to drive into the station and have someone pump thugs, check the tire pressure and the fluids and wash the car’s windows. Growing up most of our water glasses were from the gas station too.
No “thugs” – the gas. Spell check does it again.
Any bets on how many of these rocket surgeons drive off with the nozzle still in the tank?
What is this pumping gas.Jeeves come here,tell me about this”Pumping gas” so many speak of.
I didn’t go to the link. Did they explain to never pump diesel into your gas vehicle?
One of the guys I worked with pumped diesel into my unleaded company truck once in Superior, Mt. years ago when we met to swap vehicles. He was in a hurry and was drunk and I almost lost my job because of this idiot, since my initials were also on the receipt. This idiot was fired later because he got a DWI while driving a company vehicle. Since then I will not let anyone else try to help me when I get gas no matter how big a hurry they’re in.
I got a major league ass chewing by my very vulgar asshole boss (in public in front of God and everybody with every vulgar swear word known to man, he was worse than my Commanding Officer who hated my guts who I got into a tussle with once because of a screwup on my part) because of this even though it clearly wasn’t my fault. My boss later caused the downfall of this company because he was not only a slimy womanizer with some of the women who worked with us but he was also embezzling company money and running the the business into the ground and living the high life unbeknownst to anyone until he got caught. But I did start work immediately for another flower wholesaler who hired all of our crew within a week. It was a blessing in disguise. And then that company went under 6 years later because our boss although he was a good man was a lousy businessman. And a whole lot of us went over to the company that I work for now, another blessing in disguise and the best wholesale florist that I’ve worked for.
God works in mysterious ways, as a result when the first flower wholesaler (it was the Spring of 2005) that I worked went under I was given a cash payout of about $2500 which allowed me to pay a fine for rescuing at an abortion clinic in San Diego in Aug. 1996 which I didn’t know about until it showed up unexpectedly in the mail. I was able to pay that fine and keep some money to pay some of my other bills as well. God is good all the time for those who love him, there is no way that I can explain this otherwise.