Oregon’s Senate has repealed a 72-year prohibition against self-service gas, with new legislation requiring gas stations to staff half the available pumps, while allowing the rest to be self-service. The bill, responding to industry staffing shortages, also prohibits charging more for full-service than self-service, likely leading to the phasing out of full-service pumps.
Now we can only make fun of New Jerseyans for being too stupid to be trusted around a gas pump.
Hey leave us alone. We’ll figure it out in another 72.
Omg, tell me about it. Moved to NJ and everyone is clueless when they leave the state and have to pump… Ok not everyone, but the number is above zero. 👍
Smell that? That’s the smell of FREEDOM.
And the smell of gas because I’ve never learned how to pump and it’s all over the ground please send help.
… you stick it in your car, pull the lever, and wait for it to stop on it’s own … hardly needs learning.
I was doing it before I was 12 because my mother was disabled. If you can’t figure it out, you might be an idiot.
Gas is literally just sex for your car. You stick the rod in the hole and jiggle it til your $20 deposit is up.
Honestly these days it’s trivial to look up how to do something. I get that not everyone is technically inclined, but it’s just as easy to look the next car over and watch what they are doing.
I have more trouble figuring out why the pump won’t read my card than putting the gas in my car.
Don’t forget to pull the terminal before.you insert your card, card skimmers are huge issues at gas stations
This freedom smells suspiciously like poverty.
If you have not experienced the lines for gas at an Oregon Costco, you’ve really missed out. End of an era.
People in Oregon really don’t believe me when I saw I never waites in line for gas when I lived in other states.
Costco has lines regardless of whether it’s self serve though
Yup, only place I’ve ever waited for gas (outside of a hurricane or blizzard being imminent) is in NJ. Then they always try to divert me into a lane with the pump on the wrong side which I’ll have none of because I know they’ll just drag a dirty rubber hose across my paint, it’s bad enough that they touch my car at all. (Though I realize that’s mostly a me issue)
oh no I’m right there with you. I used to try to avoid having to stop for gas in NJ or OR at all costs until I got a car that wants 93, but we only have 91 in CA but they have 92 in OR so I just deal with it (it gets noticeably better fuel economy).
We’re self-service in California and our Costco gas queues are also asinine. Are they just that much worse over there?
I live in Washington. I remember one time crossing the border from Portland, Oregon to Vancouver, Washington. What’s funny is that Portland has two rivers. The Willamette to the South and the Columbia to the North. The Columbia is the border with Washington. During that trip I stopped for gas, and figured that since I just crossed a river I must be in Vancouver. I got out and started pumping gas only for a guy in an orange vest to come screaming at me to stop like I was about to blow the place up, which is weird because as many of you know it’s not that hard to pump gas? Turns out I was in the strip of land in Portland that’s between the Willamette and the Columbia, and so I was still in Oregon.
Just a little funny anecdote about this whole situation.
So… are we celebrating a bunch of people losing their jobs?
Its a dumb job
The article snippet quoted here literally says this was in response to industry staffing shortages…
There is no shortage of workers. There is only a shortage of employers willing to pay.
Sure, but that’s entirely beside the point here. Nobody is celebrating people being laid off en masse. The law changed because these jobs were apparently not being occupied to begin with,
Then this is a capitulation we shouldn’t have made. These companies tried to coerce us into letting them get away with not hiring people, despite us having a law intended to make them hire people, and we have allowed them to get away with it.
“Make work” laws are terrible policy.
You’re forcing consumers to pay a human who is only there to inconvenience them.
There’s a reason we don’t have laws protecting buggy-whip makers. People need to find new jobs that provide value to society.
Celebrating the removal of an asinine law that forbid people from doing a common task themselves.
Pointless jobs, yes
Meanwhile, I live in a country where probably over half the gas stations have no personnel at all.
I remember one service station testing the concept of having staff help with gas, and it felt really awkward.
How does it lead to the phasing out of full service pumps when it requires half the pumps to be full service?
Because in another 5 years the staff shortage will be so bad that they can’t staff the pumps, and their Congress will then remove full service pumping from law completely. Granted, some stations (the largest nicest ones with lots of convenience store offerings) will probably keep some full-service pumps as it will always help with bringing people into the store, but a lot of the rural stations will definitely become self service only.
Help me understand. How can full-service ever be “phased out” if the law explicitly requires half of the pumps to be staffed? I feel like I’m misunderstanding something obvious.
I live in Oregon and moved here from a self pump state, personally I love not getting out of my car to pump gas. Doubly so when it’s shitty out. I hope most places around here keep the gas pump people. They probably will tbh because native Oregonians would have a fit, especially old timers.
Didn’t they already allow self service in rural areas or was this somewhere else? I feel like I saw videos of people pumping gas in weird ways.
Yes, but only for the last couple of years. Most Oregonians have never pumped gas.
