The change in Oregon is just a proposal right now. And it would only apply to rural areas. That said, I will welcome the change because when you pump the gas yourself you get in and out a lot faster.
OT: NJ As Lone Holdout Against Self-Service Gas Pumps
- Thread starter RUinPinehurst
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The change in Oregon is just a proposal right now. And it would only apply to rural areas. That said, I will welcome the change because when you pump the gas yourself you get in and out a lot faster.
Just because one guy (from NJ) identified that average in one study of exactly two neighboring states doesn't make it representative of the differences you'd actually experience on an every fill-up basis. The only time full service is going to be as quick on a free pump is when the gas attendant is standing there waiting for you and doesn't leave. From there, it's a matter of just how much longer you wait versus self serve. Every fill up.
Some impatient people here LOL Now that I am retired my vehicle stays in the driveway a LOT. I am a cyclist and my trips to the YMCA, Walmart and Publix for groceries are all done by bike....that has a sweet carrier on the back. I cycle about 0mi a week on average.
Ive started to use SUNRAIL in Orlando for trips downtown and love it. I last filled my vehicle 7 weeks ago.
Ive started to use SUNRAIL in Orlando for trips downtown and love it. I last filled my vehicle 7 weeks ago.
Having lived outside of NJ for a decade, pumping your own gas is no big deal and NJ doesn't have a good reason for being a holdout when 48 other states allowing self-serve for generations without major issues. This prohibition is one of three things that makes NJ looks ridiculous. The other two things are that NJ has more school districts than municipalities and not having a University of New Jersey or a New Jersey State University.
Sure. One guy, who happens to be an economics professor, who conducted a peer reviewed study with statistically valid results.
What real data do you have?
So typical of NJ backward thinking pompous and corrupt blowhards that manage the state. Blocking Tesla and no self serve gas stations are two great examples of poor decision making.
It extends to the poor attitude towards RU. Nearly every other state uni across the country is celebrated and provided decent funding. Not NJ...
It extends to the poor attitude towards RU. Nearly every other state uni across the country is celebrated and provided decent funding. Not NJ...
It's funny how much back and forth there's been on this thread over which method of pumping gas saves time. If people really wanted to save time, they could have just skipped posting on this thread. :D
Your data supports exactly what pro self service folks have said - faster service, cheaper prices. It's intuitive - basic physics and economics.
The exact nature of how much cheaper and faster would vary by person, station, day and time. Or do you really think your averages are going to hold up forever, for every single gas trip across the entire state?
When 96 percent of parties do things one way for years, they're probably not wrong, and you should probably have better evidence than "well, it's not that much better" if you want to prove them wrong. Especially when your way is the bastard child of corrupt politics.
It's your state, though, so enjoy.
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I get my gas at Costco self-service. Always a long line, but the price is right. (At least for Nevada, where it's 3.20 in most places right now.)
Self-service works for me, especially late at night. Quick in and quick out. Banning it is kind of silly, although as long as the gas tax is the only low tax in New Jersey paying for self-service won't be an issue.
Pumping one's own gas is quite intuitive and not a big deal. In fact, motorists in 48 states seem to get along just fine.
I'm not advocating an outright switch to self-service, but rather the freedom to pump your own (which I constantly wish to do). Take it for what it's worth, but self-service would be most definitely be quicker in the case of overcrowded Costcos and Wawa super-stations, where attendants constantly have to serve 4-8 vehicles and wait times can quickly balloon (20-25 minutes at the worst)
I end up going to get gas as early as possible or just before close to avoid the crowds, but not everyone has that luxury..
I'm not advocating an outright switch to self-service, but rather the freedom to pump your own (which I constantly wish to do). Take it for what it's worth, but self-service would be most definitely be quicker in the case of overcrowded Costcos and Wawa super-stations, where attendants constantly have to serve 4-8 vehicles and wait times can quickly balloon (20-25 minutes at the worst)
I end up going to get gas as early as possible or just before close to avoid the crowds, but not everyone has that luxury..
Its rare. In fact I cant think of a single full serve outside of NJ. Which makes sense. People are not loyal to gas stations, only to prices. If you can charge 2-5 cents less than the guy across the street on a regular basis, you will eventually put him out of business. If NJ legalized self-serve, the full serve station swould quickly disappear, just like they did everywhere else.
SKII has the main point. At an isolated station where there are only one or two cars, full service is the same. At a crowded station, they are always understaffed an you end up waiting after your tank is full while the guy does some other guys car.
I was talking to a gas attendant recently and he told me he thinks it is an ordinance and not a law because the fire department does the inspecting of it.
Now for it to change there needs to be a reason. Here are some things to consider.
- can the state make more money by eliminating gas attendants? Maybe if they raise the gas tax at the same time. They are losing some income tax money though.
- will this eliminate jobs for unskilled workers? Yes, since most gas attendants make minimum wage
- will the elderly or disabled have undue hardship because of self service stations? Yes, since there will be less pumps for full service, longer waits, and higher prices
For self serve the gas station model will change. Right now we have a lot of stations that are also mechanics with a few Wawa type stations. You will see more Wawa / 7-11 type stations. Selling lottery tickets and coffee will offset the price savings on the gas. If 1 of 10 customers buys a coffee while filling up gas and coffee costs $1.50 to the customer (25 cents to the station) then you have $1.25 profit for the coffee. If the 10 gas customers fill up a total of 100 gallons then the coffee offsets each gallon by about 1 penny. If that number is higher because of the morning rush plus customers who buy coffee without buying gas then it may move to 5 or more cents a gallon.
Now for it to change there needs to be a reason. Here are some things to consider.
- can the state make more money by eliminating gas attendants? Maybe if they raise the gas tax at the same time. They are losing some income tax money though.
- will this eliminate jobs for unskilled workers? Yes, since most gas attendants make minimum wage
- will the elderly or disabled have undue hardship because of self service stations? Yes, since there will be less pumps for full service, longer waits, and higher prices
For self serve the gas station model will change. Right now we have a lot of stations that are also mechanics with a few Wawa type stations. You will see more Wawa / 7-11 type stations. Selling lottery tickets and coffee will offset the price savings on the gas. If 1 of 10 customers buys a coffee while filling up gas and coffee costs $1.50 to the customer (25 cents to the station) then you have $1.25 profit for the coffee. If the 10 gas customers fill up a total of 100 gallons then the coffee offsets each gallon by about 1 penny. If that number is higher because of the morning rush plus customers who buy coffee without buying gas then it may move to 5 or more cents a gallon.
My experience is that it is the non-busy stations that tend to be understaffed. The busy stations tend to be fully-staffed. Which makes sense. Busy stations don't want their pumps sitting idle, when they could be making money dispensing gasoline.
Assuming a gas station attendant in NJ makes $12 per hour (20¢ per minute), then a station only needs to make more than 20¢ per minute profit per pump to make it worthwhile to hire another attendant. Gas pumps are designed to pump 10 gallons per minute (the EPA limit). Even at half that rate, at 5 gallons per minute, they only need to clear 4¢ per gallon to pay for the attendant. And we saw from the study I posted earlier in this thread, that the margin on full-serve gas in NJ is about 4.27¢ per gallon more than self-serve gas in other states. So the station is making at least 4¢ per gallon (since they have the margin that self-serve stations in other states earn, plus the additional 4.27¢ they get for full-serve in NJ). A busy station in NJ wants enough attendants to ensure that cars get in and out as fast as possible, money is not lost by cars waiting for an attendant, and profits are maximized.
Agree pumping your own gas is far superior to having an attendant forced down your tank.
Considering , the way it is now, in the state considered one of the most expensive to live in being one of the cheapest
for gas prices, knocking attendants from pumping your gas might change things.
Now do you think it will lower gas prices even further in Jersey or edge closer to the 30 cent more being charged in NY & PA.
Delaware is only 9 cents a gallon higher, so it might be worth paying a dime more a gallon on the do it yourself plan.
Of course if you think prices will go down without attendants, remember that when attendants gone and you see thew new price while
filling your tank.
NJ has one of the lowest gas prices, but still some aren't satisfied.
Arizona had a two tier gas price many years ago, self service was cheaper than the full service route .
But when full service was eliminated, the self service prices were as well. Everyone payed more for self service after full service became history.
Considering , the way it is now, in the state considered one of the most expensive to live in being one of the cheapest
for gas prices, knocking attendants from pumping your gas might change things.
Now do you think it will lower gas prices even further in Jersey or edge closer to the 30 cent more being charged in NY & PA.
Delaware is only 9 cents a gallon higher, so it might be worth paying a dime more a gallon on the do it yourself plan.
Of course if you think prices will go down without attendants, remember that when attendants gone and you see thew new price while
filling your tank.
NJ has one of the lowest gas prices, but still some aren't satisfied.
Arizona had a two tier gas price many years ago, self service was cheaper than the full service route .
But when full service was eliminated, the self service prices were as well. Everyone payed more for self service after full service became history.
Hopefully, NJ will never change its policy. We pay less for gas than they do in most other states AND we don't have pump it ourselves. Sounds like the best of both worlds to me, and creates more jobs for kids and immigrants in the process. I like not having to get out of the car on very cold or very hot days to have to pump my gas, or having to read the instructions about how + where to pay.
These things are completely unrelated. As has been mentioned before or gas taxes are the rain for cheap prices. We pay 14.5 cents per gallon (minus the national tax of 18.4). Alaska is the only state that is cheaper at 11.3 cents. The national average is 30.1. NY and PA are the two highest at 50.3 and 50.5 cents per gallon. Unless we increase or gas tax more than 300 percent we will always be cheaper than our neighbors.
While I like having full-serve in NJ, I also realize that NJ has lower gas prices because NJ has lower gas taxes. Full-serve in NJ adds a little to the price of gas (less than 5 cents per gallon). To me, that is a nominal price to pay for the convenience of not having to get out of the car and pump my own gas.
Also, if you live in a self-serve area, you don't really need to read the instructions on how to fill the tank. You can learn it pretty quickly.
Incidentally, I had to get gas this morning, so I decided to see how much extra time I spent with full serve.
I pulled into a busy Quick Chek on my way to work and pulled up to an empty pump. I got out of my car, as if I were going to pump gas myself. By the time I got out of the car, the attendant had already opened the door to my gas tank and was approaching the driver side door. I handed him my credit card and he went to fill the tank. Certainly no time was wasted before gas was pumped into my car.
While my car was being filled, I went back to sit in the driver's seat. When the pump clicked off after my tank was filled, I noticed that the attendant helping me had just walked up to another car that needed gas. This was the worst possible outcome from a time perspective. I had to wait until the attendant was done with the other car before he could finish with my car. It took 27 seconds. Of course, when the attendant was done with my car, I was already in the driver's seat, and I started the engine and pulled away. If this were self-serve, I would have had to walk back around the car, get into the car, and put on my seatbelt before I could start the engine an pull away. I'm pretty nimble, so that may have only cost me 5 seconds (but judging from people pulling out of the supermarket parking lot, it takes some people 3 minutes or longer to get into a car and start to pull away). So reducing the 27 seconds I had to wait by the 5 seconds I saved by not having to get back into my car after fueling, I estimated that I lost a whole 22 seconds by using full-serve instead of self-serve.
I was at a Costco gas recently. Because they did not have enough attendants, a rare occurrence, I saw they had coned-off a couple lanes. Making lines somewhat longer... and still they did not have enough attendants to handle the lanes they had open. So there was time wasted as in the above anecdotal example by upstream. I have seen this same thing happen at WaWa and elsewhere as well.
If the coned-off pimps could have been self-serve instead, we'd all win.
So, while I have defended the full service requirement.. and defended its efficiency.. maybe it is tie I switched camps on this issue.
If the coned-off pimps could have been self-serve instead, we'd all win.
So, while I have defended the full service requirement.. and defended its efficiency.. maybe it is tie I switched camps on this issue.
Rarely do I have to fill up in NJ but when I do I'd actually be willing to pay an extra 5 cents/gal to be able to pump my own gas and keep the attendant away from my car.
We'll be flying up to NJ tomorrow for a loooong weekend in the Garden State. Cannot wait to pull up to the pumps at some point and wait for a professional "full" service attendant to come to our aid. Mrs.RUinPinehurst (a native North Carolinian) will undoubtedly look at me, puzzled, while this happens. I'll have no rational explanation for what she'll witness.
raise gas taxes to pay for road repair--nj roads suck and yet some bitch about not being able to get the stink of gas on their hands?? I gladly pay more for gas to have someone pump it for me and actually on LI there are stations doing it for free and get more customers than the others because of it
How do you know that the pumps were coned off because there weren't enough attendants, versus an issue with the pumps or some other reason?
Especially at a place like Costco, where they have a huge employee pool to draw from, I can't imagine that they'd cone off pumps and give up profit due to lack of staffing. It seems to me that if pumps were coned off, it was due to another reason.
Really going out of your way on speculation to support an untenable position. As if understaffed gas stations never happen, and as if it wouldn't be an extinct issue with self service.
It seems to be a your guess is as good as mine situation, even self service gas pumps need maintenance and are put out of service till it's dome.
I've seem plenty of self service gas pumps with the out of service sign on them or lane blocked off and line to other pumps backed up or cars leaving to get gas elsewhere.
Under attended gas stations could also have been the problem, but I don't feel saying an issue with the pumps shouldn't be considered a valid reason.
My point is more that those specifics really are irrelevant because there appears to be no good argument in favor of full service. It was a result of a politically corrupt deal to bolster the status quo at the real expense of consumers of the time. The evidence Upstream presented to support full service really just shows that self service is both cheaper and faster. Legalizing self service would not equate to a ban on full service, but would simply give people an option, letting the market decide. That's a good thing.
FWIW, the market has decided overwhelmingly in favor of self service in other states.
FWIW, the market has decided overwhelmingly in favor of self service in other states.
Funny stuff, this "NJ as the lone holdout for not legalizing self-service gas." Why? It's more than a case of personal preference from residents/voters, or even a generational divide. Really does seem to be an odd political influence still at work in NJ, and nothing more.
Washroom attendants from bygone days? They would hand you a towel after you washed your hands. You tipped them, of course. Now, we wave our hand over an electronic dispenser and a sheet of paper towel is presented to us, or a jet of heated air provides the solution.
Elevator operators? We've been pushing our own floor buttons for many decades now, with little or no thought of how we once were served by an attendant there, too.
Switchboard receptionists? "... and how may I direct your call?" Replaced by direct dial and/or an auto-attendant to expedite your call... to a voice-mail outlet perhaps. But still....
It's tough being the last to accept change, for expedience's sake or not. But change will happen, anyway.
Washroom attendants from bygone days? They would hand you a towel after you washed your hands. You tipped them, of course. Now, we wave our hand over an electronic dispenser and a sheet of paper towel is presented to us, or a jet of heated air provides the solution.
Elevator operators? We've been pushing our own floor buttons for many decades now, with little or no thought of how we once were served by an attendant there, too.
Switchboard receptionists? "... and how may I direct your call?" Replaced by direct dial and/or an auto-attendant to expedite your call... to a voice-mail outlet perhaps. But still....
It's tough being the last to accept change, for expedience's sake or not. But change will happen, anyway.
There is actually just one good argument for me to support prohibiting self-service: I like being able to sit in my car and have someone else fill the tank, and if NJ were to legalize self-service, then full-service would disappear in NJ just like it did pretty much everywhere else (with the few places offering full serve charging significantly more than the pennies per gallon that full serve costs in NJ).
And considering that every proposal to allow self-serve in NJ in the last 2 decades has been met with overwhelming public opposition, I am certainly not alone in NJ in preferring full-serve.
Regardless of whether prohibiting self-serve was initially a move of political corruption, the result is a system that is preferred by the public.
That's fair enough. I would argue, though, that it's preferred because it's the only thing a lot of residents know. Ignorant bliss. This thread shows a lot of support for the idea that people don't miss full service when it's gone, at least not after spending a bit of time adjusting.
On the other hand, there is certainly a big move toward not having to get out of your car. Fast serve restaurants sell more through their drive through, than they do for people walking into the restaurant. Even though it is usually faster to go into the restaurant (where there are multiple registers, and people with fast orders can get their food while people with slow orders wait) than go through the drive through (where a person with a slow order holds up the entire queue behind them). Even though going into the restaurant gives you flexibility (like deciding how much ice you want in your drink). But people like the convenience of not having to get out of their cars, even if it is a little slower and they give up other perks.
"Ignorant bliss" would be a better argument if NJ weren't such a small state. I can't imagine there is a large proportion of drivers in NJ who have never had the opportunity to experience the joy of self-serve in a nearby state.
Pretty much all the gas stations around me (all self service, in case that wasn't clear before) have full convenience stores, and many of them actually have drive-through windows. Kind of funny in light of this discussion. I've never seen anyone actually pump their own gas, then drive up to the window, but I'll bet it happens. I don't understand why people sit and wait for 10 minutes at a "convenience" store or "fast" food drive-through, either. I guess the image of convenience overrides the fact that it isn't necessarily more convenient.
Won't we all feel silly about this argument when everyone is chauffeured by self-driving electric cars that stay wirelessly charged by the highway they're driving on.
Won't we all feel silly about this argument when everyone is chauffeured by self-driving electric cars that stay wirelessly charged by the highway they're driving on.
That's why I specified that you need time to adapt. Having gone through that transition, I know it takes a couple weeks to get used to it and a trip back to the full service stations of NJ to really drive it home. Self pumping on a visit isn't the same thing.
Most posters that support full service in this thread show that they have no real idea with the stereotypical arguments - gas on your hands (not an issue), getting out of the car in the cold/hot (you know you will have to get out of the car eventually and probably walk farther than your rear fender, plus NJ weather really isn't that hot or cold), oh my beautiful tuxedo! (fuel up before you get in your beautiful tuxedo or just be careful). None of those things are real deal breakers in life, but they look like it to folks that don't know any better.
