People Freak Out After Oregon Strikes Law Banning Self-Service Gas Stations – IOTW Report

People Freak Out After Oregon Strikes Law Banning Self-Service Gas Stations

Sunday, 31 December 2017, 16:00 MJA Uncategorized 46

“It’s official. Oregon is full of mentally defective, full grown children, incapable of the most mundane of adult task.” 

46 Comments on People Freak Out After Oregon Strikes Law Banning Self-Service Gas Stations

  5. I remember years ago, before self serve, I would always pull my motorcycle to the pump and start filling it. I wouldn’t even get off the bike. Some jockeys would run up like I was breaking the law. I would just say “you’re not touching my bike” and they would back off.

  7. The law is needed. How else could those attendants afford to buy their pot seeds.

    p.s. As I age, I do wish I could find a station with attendants to fill my gas tank. It’s difficult to wield a cane and the nozzle at the same time.

  11. When I was a kid most of our dishes were gas station giveaways. And Green Stamps, and free flower seeds, too. And the men were friendly not surly. It was a great way for an owner to be an independent businessman. I’d like full service to come back but NOT MANDATED BY LAW. And how about a few stations run by AMERICANS?

  13. Where I live in Florida, there are still a few full-service filling stations around but I estimate they are no more than one out of a hundred. State law requires an attendant on duty but they are responsible for making sure customers don’t fill unsuitable containers and other safety concerns. Although there’s no legal requirement to do so, pretty much all stations have signs saying to toot your horn for the attendant to help you.

    This works just fine, and where I live is chock full of geezers. I see little old rickety people pumping their own gas without difficulty all the time.

    Oh, yeah, it is legal for drivers to pump their own diesel fuel in Oregon and New Jersey, but a lot of stations don’t allow that anyway.

  14. If you have a fleet card like I do for my work truck for a Pacific Pride or similar gas station you can still pump your own gas in Oregon. My dad who President of the local gasoline dealers association back in the 70’s always told me that the gas dealers did this in Oregon because they thought that Oregonians were too stupid to pump their own gas. They also tried to implement it in Wash. but the state legislature wouldn’t pass it.

  15. @geoff the aardvark – Some people are indeed too stupid to pump their own gas. About a month ago I saw a guy in a new Mercedes pull up on the wrong side of the pump and stretch the hose over his trunk. Rather than hold onto the hose so he could put the nozzle in right-side up, he just let the hose pull on the nozzle until it was upside down. The auto shut-off doesn’t always work upside-down and he wasn’t paying attention so at least a gallon overflowed onto the ground. I ran to shut his pump off but somebody else beat me to it.

  16. p.s. That there are morons like the Mercedes guy doesn’t mean there should be laws prohibiting self-serve pumps. Maybe there should be a quick IQ test before you can swipe your credit card and activate the pump, but that should be up to the filling station owner.

  17. I have two friends live in Oregon. Annual visitors to my home here in Georgia for an event about a dozen far flung visitors show up for. We are a cabal, a coven, a conspiracy of the like minded.

    Took my new wife for her first visit to the Pacific North West this past May to see these guys and where they live. One close to Bend, the other in Corvallis.

    The attendants at the gas stations there flipped her out. She’d never seen a place where you COULD NOT pump your own gas. I already knew from previous visits so it was fun to watch her reaction.

    Actually, her reactions to the absolute beauty of Oregon were my favorite parts of the trip. If you haven’t been, you should. High desert with glacier capped mountains in the east, temperate rain forest in the west.

    We stood on ten foot deep snow on the rim of Crater Lake on June the first.

  19. I worked a full service, when I was in HS.
    We kept the bank in a cigar box, the real money was there, the till was a show.
    Had a lady come in, real looker, driving a new Jag saloon.
    Spent a lot of time on her windscreen, then under the bonnet.
    The dip stick showed nothing, I showed it to her and asked when the last oil change was.
    Blank stare, then I asked the cars milage, 20K, my guess was, it had the original oil.
    Dumped in 2 quarts of Castrol, came all the way up to the first mark.
    Told her she really needed to see about an oil change, told me her boyfriend would take care of it.
    I still mourn for that car.
    There is a Mormon station I use, has alcohol free gas too.
    Full service, if you ask/need it.

  21. I live in Oregon. The #1 problem I have with the forced mini-serve is waiting for the attendant to start the pumping and then to come back later on to remove the nozzle. I would love to see a study on how much time is wasted just sitting there waiting. From my experience it adds up quick to several hours a year.

  23. Yeah we went to Joisy back in 2000 – drove there – got over the border and needed gas so I stopped, got out and started pumping my own. You’d a thought I holding a lit torch at the pump or something the way that guy came runing outta the station yelling at me:
    “you can’t do that!”
    Whuuuuut?? I can’t do what???
    “You can’t pump yer own gas!”
    “Why not, I’m not crippled”
    “No, it’s against the law”

    Well that was the first I’d heard of that, but OK bud, knock yerself out and pump the damn gas.
    What I actually discovered wuz that was the quickest way to get someone off their ass and out to the pumps for service!

    I thing NJ has since discarded that law.

  27. one of the most fun jobs I ever had was as a 15/16 year old pump jockey, washing windows, checking/changing oil, water, pumping gas … at the College Park Esso Station … wore holes in several windshields … cleaning ’em for the hot college girls!
    the biggest challenge you had was finding the gas cap …. was it on the front wheel well? the rear wheel well? on the hood? behind the license plate?
    great times hanging out at the Gas Station, listening to stories (usually too crazy to be believed) by the older guys … gas was 29 cents a gallon in those days … yes, people would come in for a dollar’s worth, get Green Stamps (or Top Value), get 8 gallons & get a steak knife (still got some) … yeah, the bad old days ….. 😉

  30. I grew up pumping gas for my dad at his Shell gas station back in the late 60’s and early 70’s making about a $1 an hr. which was the minimum wage back then. Unfortunately after he lost his lease in 1982 they tore down the Shell station and built a Mcbozo’s there which I very snarkily refer to as The Regal Shell Memorial Mcbozo’s. My dad has never ate there and never will. I learned everything I need to know about work from pumping gas then at the Shell station. We had a very wealthy customer, a local realtor who bitched about the price of premium ethyl gasoline (.30 a gallon) when he’d come in to fill up his Chevy truck while towing a boat on Sat. mornings on his way to the lake, he could fill it all up for under $20 and he still bitched about it. And some gypsy customers who only bought a buck or two worth of gas at a time, never could figure them out but they never ripped us off. And I did all this with a smile while wearing one of those idiotic, stupid clip on bow ties.

  33. I may be wrong but an old friend from Oregon who passed a couple years ago said this started because back inthe 50’s the state wanted to allow self service. The owners of service stations fought the law change and claimed it was unsafe for the public to pump gas because it was a hazardous substance. The legislature backed down, great idea until the 90’s when kids who wanted to work became hard to find.

  34. About dime time, about 30 years too late if you ask me. That was one of the stupidest fucking laws I’ve ever seen. When the wife & I visit Cannon Beach in Northern Oregon from our home to the North, I always hit the last station before the state line; so I don’t have to fill up in Oregon and give my card to some skeevy asshole working the pumps. So goddamn stupid.

  35. I could fill up my 61 VW micro bus with its 10 gal. gas tank for $2.50 when gas was $.25 a gal. back in 1972. I was making $2.71 an hr. which was above minimum wage then. And the cheapest I ever saw gas was about .20 a gal. when there was a gas war going on.

  36. When I was first married, the stations on sr73 east from Franklin OH would always be in a gas war. The cheapest I bought gas in early ’71 was 15.9c. Filled up the 65 Chrysler 300 413 WH for not much (thank goodness).
    Ahh the days…..

  37. State of Oregon does not recognize national accreditation in the discipline of Petroleum Placement Engineering. Training standard far too complex for the average Oregon liberal. The government always knows best. Listen to them. Do not question. Only High School drop outs with 5 minutes training are deemed worthy of filling gas tanks. This is actually good news for the NFL. Next year there will be over a thousand former NFL/BLM guys looking for work.

  39. @ ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒΕ, or underneath the tail light of a ’54 Cadillac.
    Also, some customers only wanted .30¢ worth of gas plus wash the windshield, check the oil and check the air pressure in the tires. I was young but rapidly learned to despise certain Mexicans….I mean people.

  41. I probably drove by that Enco station (now Exxon) back in the early 70’s when a friend and I went to Seattle for the state wrestling tournament at Hec. Edmundson Pavilion. And I remember gas filler tubes hidden under license plates, behind tail lights etc. on GM cars from the late 50’s. And under the front hood in older VW beetles.

  44. Menotu is right. Waiting for the attendant to come back and remove the nozzle took forever. I could have gotten in and filled up three times in the time it took the guy to do it for me once.

    I remember gas at $.25/gallon in northern Michigan in my childhood, but by the time I started buying gas (in Ohio and then California), it was up to $.68/gallon. I’m just glad I’m not buying it at California prices anymore. 🙂

  46. @ RottyLover, I saw those prices on both in the early 60s and saw .25 gas war prices right before the embargo crap started in `73. Normally it was @ .32. Back in the early 60s It was normal for an adult to send a kid with .25 to the nearest cigarette machine to fetch a pack of smokes. $2 a carton.

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