Go Pump Yourself

I remember in the mid- to late '70s that service stations started having two different sets of pumps. One set was "full-serve," which mean that an attendant would come out and pump your gas. If the station was really old-fashioned, that same attendant might wash your windshield and check your oil as well.

The other set of pumps were "self-serve," which meant that you got out of your car and pumped your own gas. Eventually, gas station owners realized that they could save quite a bit of money by making all of their pumps self-service and not hiring pump attendants. The advent of pay-at-the-pump technology has only strengthened the station owner's case for the current model.

Except in two states, Oregon and New Jersey. This space has mocked New Jersey for its version of the law, and now it's Oregon's turn.

Oregon lawmakers said that gas stations in cities of less than 40,000 can, if they choose, offer self-serve pumping options. They don't have to, and in larger cities the option is still off the table. This seems halfway sensible, although the reaction of some of Oregon's citizens to the new law taking effect demonstrates many of them would not know "sensible" if it bit them on their rainy gray asses.

Twitter responses were telling -- some people said they would refuse to pump their own gas, while others warned of the danger confronting any untrained people who dared to handle the Hose of Death. Remember -- this is not a law mandating that every gas station in a town of 40,000 and under immediately abandon all motorists to the Jundland Wastes of the pump island. It is a law allowing stations to offer self-serve if they choose to.

Like in New Jersey, "safety" was one of the cited rationales for the previous code. Another was that by requiring service stations to have enough employees to man the pumps, the law helped put people to work. That's true, but the same logic could be employed to require Oregon's newspapers to be set in hot lead type, since that requires many more workers than computerized offset presses. Or to require Oregon's citizens to register their complaints about the law via telegraph instead of Twitter, in order to keep Morse operators and telegraphers employed. Although that last one has some undeniable appeal, since I don't know Morse code and could ignore the complaints my washed-out fellow citizens were making.

I have family in Oregon, and some friends live there as well. They are good people. Probably most of the people who live there are good people. But the silly reaction from those who see a gas station pump as though it's a one-tentacled cousin to Cthulhu demonstrates one thing clearly: These folks need to get out more.