Can't Pump your own gasoline.

[Epidemic]

In NJ there is a law that does not allow consumers to pump their own gasoline.


What initiated that law. What real value does it serve.

I mean lets get real here. how many gas stations have blown up outside of the movies in the last 100 years. If any how many could have been prevented with the skilled labor that pumps gas in NJ.

The negative effects are that the people who want gas after 10 pm have to go to a high priced name brand station .

In just about all states I can go to any pump and slip in a 10 and or a creditcard and I can fuel at any time any holiday.

Heck I even have stopped going to the ones that require me to go to the window. zip zip off I go for the next 326 miles. Then I get to NJ and wait for the fellar to finish gabbing with the other folks 10 to 20 minutes later I am off.

Are people in NJ so incapable that they can't figure out how to select a grade of fuel and squeeze the trigger?

Oh yea, thats is right, they are going to elect the ringer that is replacing the torch after all.

[jman01pa]

Maybe they have too many drive offs....

I agree with you - it's a pain. But gas isn't more expensive tahn Penna. where you can pump.

No idea why they made it a law. Maybe to provide employment to immigrant Arabs as most of the attendants are from Middle East, atleast where I live.

[cyphen]

My sis lives in NJ, too, and she told me about the law. From what she explained to me (and it's been a while, so i may not have this quite riight, it has to do with the fact that a lot of oil is refined there, so it's cheaper, and adding attendants to pump your gas for you was a tradeoff. I'll get the deets from her next time we talk... It was weird to me when i heard it too...

so what happens when a person from out of state pulls up and gets out to pump gas?

[DaveLewis]

I grew up in Jersey and the word - maybe an urban legend - was that back in the 1930's they actually had a very bad fire and explosion at a gas station that killed a bunch of people. The state legislature put a law into effect that only "trained" people would be allowed to pump gas. Of course once a law goes into effect it never goes away so many years later we're still relying on those highly trained people to pump our gas.

cause you know, pumping gas is a hard thing to do and requires alot of brain power!

[maface]

I know of one town in MA where you cannot pump your own gas. But the town right next to it you can

[DVNT1]

I though you were going to refer to being shot by a sniper if you pump gas (another one happened today ).

[osprey4]

Having lived here (too long) I can tell you there are no good reasons for the NJ law (Oregon, another state I lived in once, has the same law).

It's just the stupid NJ state legislature that can't make common sense laws.

Many of the guys who pump gas in NJ can't speak English, they smoke around the pumps, they spill gas on your car and on the ground (and don't know how to clean it up). Many are complete idiots.

Also, there are a number of stations where they have pay-at-the-pump and they let you pump your own gas.