Oregon finally legalizes pumping your own gas
thedrive.com
thedrive.com
The only excuse for the law being around so long was that it created jobs. Which was lame reasoning. They intentionally kept the gas tax lower in the state so consumers didn't notice the price difference. So effectively these were government subsidized jobs.
Good riddance. Forcing someone to stand in gas fumes all day was clearly not good for their health. And I always avoided filling up in Oregon because waiting for the "service" could sometimes be longer than the fill-up itself.
This was my understanding and I agree it is bad reasoning. It might have created jobs, but certainly not good ones.
Sure there's plenty of uber eats driving jobs but this isn't exactly something you can raise a family with.
“Then instead of shovels, why don’t you give them spoons and create even more jobs?” Friedman inquired.
Feels like something he would say though, that's for sure. The ethos is right.
[0]: https://quoteinvestigator.com/2011/10/10/spoons-shovels/
The airlines stopped pumping exhaust into passenger compartments for a few years, but then everyone forgot about the whole thing. Now you get that good-old-fashioned jet-fuel eye sting again until you wash your face after the end of the flight.
On the bright side, I don't think there's been many studies showing the old results on studies of stewardesses transfer to today's flight attendants.
This is way off the mark.
All airliners except for the Boeing 787 [0] pressurise the cabin with bleed air. This is not "exhaust"; it's pressurised air extracted upstream from the combustion stage. There are certain situations where the engine may ingest its own exhaust, or the exhaust of an aircraft in front, or there may be an internal leak in the bleed system. All of these are unintended contamination of the bleed air, not a normal mode of operation. In addition, the compressors ahead of the bleed valves must be lubricated and it is possible for this lubricant to get into the air stream if maintenance (including cleaning) is not carried out properly.
There was no period of time where airlines stopped pressurising the cabin with bleed air. It is the only source available on all airliners except the Boeing 787, and pressurisation is not optional.
[0] The Boeing 787 uses electric compressors to provide cabin air. This avoids some of the risks (leaks inside the engine, for example), but does nothing to avoid others (ingestion of exhaust from the same aircraft in certain wind conditions or from the aircraft in front when taxiing, or lubricants from the compressors getting into the air stream). The compressors are located in the wing-to-body fairing so the possibility to ingest external contaminants is quite similar to in traditional bleed air systems. The most noticeable difference on the Boeing 787 is the higher cabin pressure (lower cabin altitude) and higher humidity, both of which are made possible by structural improvements including the use of composites. Similar improvements (lower cabin altitude and higher humidity) are also present on e.g. the Airbus A350 and A380, which nonetheless — like all other airliners except the 787 — use traditional bleed air for pressurisation.
Here's a pretty good paper surveying the root-causes for this issue – https://www.scirp.org/pdf/eng_2018041917372308.pdf
For those interested, further reading:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fume_event
* Search https://avherald.com for "fume"
Exhaust and oil fumes both get into cabin air through non-normal situations. They’re not “pumped in by airlines”, and suggesting that they are (or that they stopped for a while and then started again thinking nobody would notice) is sensationalist and incorrect.
That's exactly the circumstance where the vents upstream of the jet engines are able to pull in the jet exhaust.
Every flight I've been on post-pandemic has pulled exhaust fumes into the cabin while waiting at the gate.
The patterns of whether and when ground AC is used haven’t really changed industry-wide at any recent time, and certainly not around the pandemic, so I don’t know where the idea of this “period of time” comes from.
Maybe your travel patterns changed, or the ground AC equipment availability/policies changed at your frequently-visited airports. Or maybe the aircraft you are flying on were parked during the pandemic and then the reactivation maintenance (esp. engine washes) was not thorough enough, causing fumes at startup.
If you do get in and back out, make sure to ground yourself by touching the bare metal of the pump itself before you grab the nozzle. It's not perfect, but it's much safer than not taking the time to ground at all.
Compared to all the other risks of cars and gasoline, the relative risk seems miniscule.
I'll note that in the state I live (MN) it's technically illegal to get back in your car while pumping (you have to be " in close attendance to the dispenser nozzle").
Would that little spark be enough to ignite the vapors? I have no earthly idea.
Yes.
> Gasoline...has a flashpoint of minus 43°C. Sparks and static electricity can easily ignite gasoline fumes.[0]
They couldn't do it and even when for the laughs they decided to blow it up with a match it still didn't ignite.
Probably best to not use entertainment shows as a metric for safety.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=FPKen4QwY7I
There is basically always wind where I live. The pumps shut off automatically. So I just turn the pump on and walk over to the curb, upwind from the fumes.
Washington seems more lax about it, in my experience.
Germany and Italy have the latches for sure.
And don't get me started on Brexit and BoJo the clown... I'm still angry about that to this day
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vehicle_emissions_control#Evap...
If these fumes really are so dangerous then I'm surprised there hasn't been some kind of class action lawsuit filed for workplace health and safety violations.
It's already absurd on its face that everywhere else in the country - or hell, in the _world_ - just lets people pump their own gas. Having gas station attendants in respirators in Oregon would just take it to a whole new level.
... not Japan. Or at least, not when I lived there. Maybe things have moved on.
ハイオクで満タンお願いします
I have been living in Japan for almost 5 years, and I usually pump my own gas. It depends on the gas station though, many (usually the small ones) are still full-service only.
Sample of countries that don't permit self-service gas: ~Belgium~ (maybe not, see below), Brazil, Chile, China, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Morocco, South Africa, Thailand, Turkey, and Uruguay. See https://itif.org/publications/2019/07/29/self-service-gas-in...
E.g. here is a random photo of a gas station. No room for an attendant:
https://www.google.be/maps/place/Esso+Express/@51.0211239,3....
If you got gas at one of those stations it is because it was open. being open cost an employee even when no one show up which in a sparsely populated area is usually. The only rational response is to limit hours. now you have a condition where people over a wide area are being blocked from being able to buy gas when ever they want like the people in the city who are preventing them just take for granted.
These paper cuts accumulate add in some divisive propaganda and here we are.
source: I'm one of those city folk now.
The only reason this passed at all is because of COVID. Gas stations are complaining pretty uniformly and quite loudly that they can't get their labor levels back to pre-COVID levels
But that would not be popular, and so the current staffing levels are also not popular, so there is finally sufficient political pressure to somewhat drop the gas station attendant requirement.
Let labor prices keep going up, and soon no gas station attendants will be required because voters will want cheaper gas prices more than they want someone to fill their gas.
Market rate changes for jobs and some corporations (and people) seem to think that people should take jobs as offered even when they’re bad. We have record low unemployment, yet companies that complain about labor levels are basically outing themselves as bad employers, for some definitions of bad (pay, safety, comfort, etc).
Businesses complaining about labor levels because they're too cheap to pay labor market rate and businesses complaining about laws which require them to hire employees at rates which the market will not bear are different. It is pretty clear the person I responded to thought the rate which would bring labor levels back up is not something which would be tolerated by the customers.
>>> Let labor prices keep going up, and soon no gas station attendants will be required because voters will want cheaper gas prices more than they want someone to fill their gas.
> yet companies that complain about labor levels are basically outing themselves as bad employers
Are they really bad employers when they are complaining about laws/regulation which require them to hire people for positions their customers won't pay for and do not need? I would imagine most gas stations would prefer to become completely self-serve. I don't see gas stations any place which does not require an employee to pump trying to hire people in any significant capacity to pump gas. I don't believe I've ever seen one. I don't see voters in Oregon tolerating the requirement for much longer if the market rate is above what they are willing to pay. Pushing to change laws to conform to a new reality is not a sign of "bad employers".
No. But we’re all part of the same set of laws. Maybe some laws should change with time, but lobbying for law changes because you’re a bad business isn’t great either.
They could raise prices in Oregon, or they could lower profit margins. Both are things that may help them pay a market-rate salary. Oil companies had record profits over the last year… so there was ample money to go towards salaries. They made about $1 per gallon in profits (in Oregon)… which is enough that each car fill up can almost pay a full hour of salary.
For context, they made about $0.07 in profits per gallon in Florida… by selling it at a lower cost with a smaller margin. So they could do it and stay in business.
These seem intuitively linked? If there's not enough labor to go around, more jobs will be pushed under the 'water level' where the value provided by them is less than the cost of the labor.
But saying “people don’t want to work” is false - we’re at a point in history where people have chosen to work more than any other point in history.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benzene#Component_of_gasoline
There have been many automotive enthusiasts who lived past median life expectancy and died of something other than cancer, and those are people who have likely been exposed to far more other solvents than the rest of the population.
That may have been one excuse, but as a long time Oregonian my recollection is that the real reason is voters have rejected it when it did come up for a vote. People liked the idea of citing in their car and letting someone else do the work.
> They intentionally kept the gas tax lower in the state so consumers didn't notice the price difference
I recall once reading that the cost of insurance on a self-service station isn't far off the cost of staff, and it's mostly a wash overall.
> waiting for the "service" could sometimes be longer than the fill-up itself.
These days, Costco runs a massively efficient assembly line fill-up procedure, and self-service might well be slower. At quieter stations that may not be true. Even then, it depends on if you can navigate around the cars that are just parked in front of a pump while they are shopping inside the convenience store.
I like that idea too. But I don't like the idea of forcing a human to do the work. I like the idea of legislating for standardized interfaces between gas pumps and gas doors on cars, such that it becomes possible to build "full service" robot gas stations.
I think the only reason this hasn't been pushed for, is that the automotive-sector companies with the robotics expertise are all electric-car companies. (Or hydrogen-fuel-cell car companies — lotta robotics people in that space.)
About once a year or so, I get a person at the pump behind me that is FURIOUS that I am pumping my own fuel, and start yelling at me. They ignore what I say, until the station employees confirm with them that yes, it is legal to pump your own Diesel in Oregon, just not gasoline, since gasoline is flambile. (the existing law is governed by the state fire marshall). They are usually grateful, since they are always down at least one attendent, and busy as heck.
If this were true, then there would be gas stations with attendants in the other 48 states.
(That, and some regulation around rental car companies charging a 2500% "convenience" junk fee for handling tolls.)
Is that so bad? Plenty of other countries use tax dollars to pay the poor to do busywork. And Oregon is an extremely rural state outside the Portland metro, with very little agriculture or industry other than logging and fishing, so gas stations are most likely one of the few decent options available.
It might be nice to have somebody wash the windows and check the washer fluid level, but it's hardly essential.
We don't even need them to run the credit cards any more. It's so weird going to a station in New Jersey, handing the attendant your card, and having them slide it right on the pump, just as you would. (And yeah, I've avoided filling up in New Jersey for the same reason: it takes longer.)
Maybe this served a goal at some point, but technology seems to have vaporized whatever it could have ever served.
Not that gas stations in Oregon were doing any of this anyway, they were pumping gas and nothing else.
I used to change the oil on my cars myself. I've never even tried on my newest car.
But, I mean, every model is different.
(I know this because this is how we started to learn we were losing oil, somewhere. … and unlike the parent poster's suggestion that old cars did this after 10k miles … this was around 130k miles. This is but one car, though, I suppose.)
More often than not, its just a bunch of people standing around using their phones as they wait for fill ups to end and they meander between the cars. Its really poor service, honestly.
Not to mention, they have the auto refund of the surplus, which is kinda silly, because what you'd want the state to do is setup a rainy day fund that can be safely invested for future endeavors, but no, the legislative body of 1979 made it so that if the state runs a surplus they allow everyone to get a tax "kicker"[0] instead, which is pretty short sighted IMO. Not to mention, the amount after being spread out across all of Oregons tax paying base, is really small and makes hardly a difference for the average person.
[0]: https://www.kgw.com/article/news/local/the-story/oregon-kick...
The bigger problem in Oregon government is the fact that our municipalities fail to do basic planning for their initiatives, so there'll be a surplus in one category and a deficit in another. This, I imagine, is where their slush fund could come in handy.
Lastly, we have a lot of corruption in this state which should be a higher priority to deal with. I was shocked in the Fagan case when I learned that we don't have anti-corruption laws to charge something as brazen as what she did.
I’d probably check someone’s oil about once an hour, but we washed windshields by default. It was before “pay at the pump”, so I spent a lot of my time walking credit cards in and out of the store to run them. It was actually a fun summer job for a high school kid.
A few summers later, I got a software internship at that oil company’s headquarters, working on a Visual Basic app for the pricing department to set prices at all of their stations. I’d often complete my week’s work by Monday afternoon and spend the rest of the week in their library, learning about all sorts of new technology. They treated me well and I was fortunate they didn’t offer me a full-time job at the end of my internship, because I likely would’ve taken it.
When I’ve filled up in Oregon, I’ve not seen them do anything but pump gas. During the pandemic, I drove through Oregon many times and learned to get gas before entering the state.
Also because they would look at you with sheepy eyes expecting tips. I avoid valet parking for the same reason. I can fill up my own gas and park my own car, I don't need the service in the first place.
Hey now, without government-subsidized jobs we'd have millions out of work if you take into account not only government agencies but also the US military.
While I think this specific version of government-subsidized jobs (pumping gas) feels forced, I think the government creating jobs is a great thing on the whole. The New Deal was a great example of this, created 20-something million new jobs for a decade or so and pulled us out of the great depression.
Now if we want to talk about truly bad government-subsidized labor it revolves around private companies abusing our welfare systems by paying their workers starvation wages cough Wal-mart cough.
I’d argue that pumping gas overall provides very low value.
Fully automated gas stations has been a thing in my country for thirty years. And they can be up to 20 cents cheaper so it was adopted by consumers very quickly.
This is 110% conjecture on my part, but I always wondered if this law wasn’t originally a covert way to impede travel for certain groups of people by empowering service stations with final say on who was allowed to buy gas https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racism_in_Oregon
It's fine with me to use my tax dollars to subsidize someone else's income when they have no better alternative. I just wish it wouldn't waste everyone's time while doing so. If you're gonna redistribute wealth at least do it efficiently, lol.
These are the small things that make life better! Wonderful news!
Living in California and driving semi-regularly to Washington I've always had to deal with the Oregon problem of gas stations. I always carry a couple of fuel jugs to fill up so I can avoid Oregon gas stations with their insane service rules. I'm glad that's over, finally.
In Oregon, though, not only were they not confused, the attendants managed to fill the fuel bottle without making a mess. That's a trick I still haven't quite mastered. Going reeeeeaaaalllly slowly seems to be part of it, but I still spill about half the time.
The gas seems to come out aerated, and foams over before settling down. It's a bit like pouring a carbonated beverage, but you can't see how full the glass is.
What has happened in the US is that other gas cylinder stoves have become more common (and maybe more standardized per another comment).
The reason that gas stoves are difficult to work with is because the flame so easily goes out. Under the right circumstances, gasoline will ignite, and the gas stove is designed to make that just barely possible. The picnic bench is a less ideal environment for lighting gasoline on fire. The movies make it look like you can just drop a match or lighter onto some spilled gasoline and get a raging inferno, but if you actually try to do this yourself (safely!) you may see that dropping a lit match into gasoline often extinguishes it.
Depending on the ambient environment—the wind, temperature, how much gasoline, etc.
I still used my stove for many years after, but the knowledge of that made me handle it with extreme care each time. Like one step below a Japanese nuclear technician who is calling his shots and pointing before each action...
They do that for trains too but I noticed them doing it in "The Days", tho they still blew up the reactor.
The advantage a white gas stove has is that it will work in freezing weather and it is easier to store.
Liquid fuel stoves can also be run in very cold temperatures, where butane mixtures or propane stop working.
(Edited to add) Liquid fuel stoves have better cold weather performance, and are popular in mountaineering for that reason. I am not a mountaineer and rarely camp cold enough that I need the cold weather performance. Canisters will do down to 20F/-6C with even minimal care.
Liquid fuel stoves burn a variety of fuels, but white gas is a common one. Pump gas burns a little dirtier than white gas, but the upside of a stove that'll safely burn pump gas is that the fuel is available everywhere. Canisters and white gas often require a camping store, or at least a well-stocked Walmart.
If you're outside of areas with a lot of demand for canister fuel, a stove that burns pump gas is a godsend.
The canister situation has gotten enormously easier with the near-universal adoption of EN 417[1] canisters by manufacturers. Prior to that, there were a lot of incompatible standards.
How does exposure of food to benzene vapours from gasoline factor into safety?
I feel like using gasoline for cooking food would be a fuel of last-resort.
I did a double-take when I read that you can use gasoline.
The international simmers a little more poorly than the regular in my limited experience. I have a Dragonfly which is a whole 'nother animal entirely. It simmers brilliantly, but it's comparatively bulky and takes a different pump from every other stove MSR makes. And it's loud as hell.
We also used actual white gas, though, not auto pump gasoline.
Plenty of countries also has their own propane bottle fittings, so getting a bottle filled from what ever country you bought it in while touring can be a nightmare. I've met people who carry a bag with 15 adapters, and I still watched propane flow out onto the ground in Argentina after visiting 6 stations with them.
MSR is a top-tier camping gear manufacturer and they specialize in making stoves which can be fueled using damn near any fuel[0] (gas AND liquid!).
These can burn:
- The pressurized canister gas you're talking about (any proportion blends of propane, isobutane, n-butane)
- White gas ("Naphtha", "Coleman liquid camping fuel", C5 to C12)
- Kerosene ("Paraffin oil", "Lamp Oil", C10 to C16)
- Unleaded gasoline (C7 to C12, nominally)
- Diesel (C12 to C16, nominally)
- Aviation gasoline ("Avgas" or 100LL)
- Jet Fuel (JP-A, JP-4, JP-8)
- Mineral spirits (C9 to C12)
- Alcohols (Typically ethanol but in a pinch isopropyl or methanol would probably "work" as well but should be considered to bring safety issues)
And they might, sometimes, also work with biodiesels and plant oils (e.g. vegetable oil, olive oil), though they are not rated for this.
Serious adventurers across the undeveloped world rely on these types of stoves because you can never be sure what kind of fuel you'll be able to get.
0: https://www.msrgear.com/blog/liquid-fuel-stoves-101-choosing...
I also view the fuels other than white gas to be a matter of necessity. IOW, no white gas, so I guess we'll use the kerosene that's more readily available. But last time I saw a multi-fuel stove in such a scenario, it involved changing the jet, and the stove didn't seem to burn quite as cleanly. That might have changed in the last 20 years, but I just stick with white gas.
But yes the efficiency and heat output definitely differ based on the fuel used, some will work better than others for a given stove design. You should be able to combust most of the hydrocarbons regardless of fuel source by adjusting the air intake but any non-hydrocarbon additives will produce strange byproducts which will seem like it’s not burning “cleanly”. e.g. SOx, NOx.
Similarly, electric cars don't produce waste heat and so the heater also gets its power from the same power source as the engine, the battery.
AFAIR it was a problem almost a century ago, not now. It's still a thing I can't get comfortable with, but there is no chance of going wrong of a car just running while it's being fueled up.
I personally will continue to religiously minimize spark and heat sources while fueling. I've seen damaged spark plugs complete their circuit by sparking through the air (and apparently keep running the engine just fine). Best to eliminate a class of problems entirely.
Outside of not fueling near an open flame, the more moderate strategy is to always plan your exits and know where that fire suppression button is relative to where you are.
My car doesn't have a "fire suppression button", nor does my gas station, the closest they have is an emergency fuel cutoff switch that stops the pumps, but it doesn't do any active fire suppression.
Familiarity with your surroundings is far more valuable than superstitious behavior.
My wife and I were in the back seat and not pleased by that action. I would think a modern car can handle that without exploding but why risk it? Just deal with the heat for, oh, another 30 seconds. We were filling up a Honda Accord, not some camper van with a giant tank.
Shady Cove? Chevron next to a fire station? If so, I stop by there whenever I go out that way. Really conveniently sited, honestly.
> Oregon drivers that would prefer to save time by simply pulling up to an empty pump rather than waiting in line for a forced full-service pump.
Anecdata n=1, but this hasn't been the problem, at least in east Portland. The article describes stations where "half the pumps" are closed because they can't staff, but as a daily driver for 10 years and especially since 2021 I haven't seen a pump closed due to staffing — the one or two attendants for the pumps just take longer to get to everyone. Go to smaller stations with 4-8 pumps and it usually moves faster.
The more pertinent shift I've seen is shorter operating hours, which is the biggest benefit of allowing self-service. Having self-service pumps means stations can more feasibly open earlier and stay open later, especially those already attached to convenience stores that are already staffed.
Also this is going to be great for out-of-staters already familiar with pumping gas, but based on road-trip experience there are some native/lifelong urban Oregonians who have no fucking idea what do at or with a gas pump.
This was a common problem before the rules on rural stations loosened up. Driving through Oregon during the night could be pretty risky - there were very few 24/7 stations.
First and only time I've encountered a full station closed, but it blew my mind, having grown up in Washington and never having an issue pumping gas because an attendant wasn't there. Really happy it looks like I'll be able to start pumping my own again.
Honestly I know this is about gas stations, but service jobs in general in the PNW I've noticed have very very poor service, very kurt employees up here, seems very common. I moved in from California, and one thing I'll say is having lived in California for 13 years (around Sacramento, though went to the Bay Area plenty of times) they at least acknowledge your presence and just seem friendlier.
I want better working conditions for everyone in these jobs, thats for sure, but this seems to be a cultural thing in the Pacific Northwest. My casual interactions around here just seem to leave alot to be desired. I'm not huge on small talk, but there's just little cues and things people do that make things more welcoming that people just don't do here.
I had a very interesting experience in 2010, when I moved to Atlanta for a few years, kind of the opposite of what you're experiencing. Being from the PNW, the sort of attitude you described was ingrained in me, and I hated the forced outward politeness of "Southern hospitality". It was such a shock; I could never get used to it and quickly realized that it was a bullshit veneer that people put on in spite of whatever mood they might be feeling. That's not to say that, perhaps to your point, there's not a happy medium to be found, but I digress.
I bring that up because in the first apartment complex I moved to in Atlanta, there was an older gentleman a few units down who had an Oregon license plate and looked stereotypically Oregonian. The highlight of my days would be my interactions with him as we passed by in the common area - they literally were only ever a quick head nod to one another with nary a word said between us. Never knew his name, never held a conversation, maybe only uttered the word, "Hi," once, but for someone who preferred those kinds of interactions and couldn't get used to that aspect of Southern culture I really, really cherished those moments.
But that's just me. :)
Just saying.
The Oregon legislature only meets for 6 months in odd numbered years and a month and a half in even years.
In that time they barely have time to address pressing issues of the day, do we really need them to be rubber stamping a bunch of laws for weeks every time?
It’s a terrible idea.
You are saying that as if that is some in-mutable fact of life. I work the whole year. Odd and even years included. Why don't they?
> do we really need them to be rubber stamping a bunch of laws for weeks every time?
Maybe they will think harder about how to achieve the same level of service with less and better laws then.
Assuming you’re a programmer, why don’t you just write fewer lines of code?
Maybe we should just have every line of code automatically delete itself after a specified period of time.
Lines of code is actually a great analogy. The Linux kernel frequently removes old, irrelevant code that is poorly maintained and is no longer useful.
Most likely, they'd just resort to blanket renewing everything, in order to get to the real work, if it were a year that work was doable. And in years where there's no appetite for getting things done, it will probably take the whole session to get the renewals done.
What I don’t agree with is the idea that you should just slash away at it with a machete rather than cut away with a scalpel.
Making changes to laws is extremely politically fraught and challenging, the real world is messy, and we need laws.
For as much flak as people like to give our political system, America has succeeded for having fairly effective and good government, not in spite of it.
If anything it works like a series of patches. Imagine a codebase where each commit has an expiration date. If some patches are left to expire, I think we can would be in agreement that at the very least we would have no expectation that patch application would still be successful - leaving us with textual issues.
At the very worst, we have no guarantee that the resulting body of law would be consistent, or result in a consistent society. We already have potential loopholes when folks are careful with drafting laws. This is asking for exploits. There is no static analysis for political economy.
Oh I'm working very hard on that. Code is liability.
> Maybe we should just have every line of code automatically delete itself after a specified period of time.
I actually proposed that. We should just try to randomly delete lines of code and if it doesn't break any tests just commit it. And I was only half joking.
i imagine the original goal was to have "regular people" vs "career politicians"
The even numbered year session was added relatively recently (i.e. within the last 20 years.) And the minority party still complains when major when major work is done during that period of time, because “that’s not what it is for”.
In practice I don't think it works the way its being presented like this. You still need to be wealthy enough to kick off a campaign, raise awareness for running for office etc.
I don't think this has meaningfully made the Oregon legislature more representative of the "average" person
From anecdotal experience most people don’t even know who they are or what they do.
Is 6/1.5/6/1.5... "enough" for what they should be doing now or "enough" to do what they should be doing in a world where all laws sunset? How would I know from looking at the number of months they're in session?
If they only met 1.5 months every year, would it be obvious to you that they didn't have enough time to "address pressing issues of the day"?
If they met 6 months every year, would it seem to you like they must be spinning their wheels a bit?
This comment reads similar to people saying “why does it take so long to add a button to a website! It seems so simple to me I don’t know why you’re just wasting your time! What do we even pay you for?”
It would be better to vote for better politicians who work together to enact sensible, reasonable and evidence based policies but that'll never happen, because humans.
A lot of state constitutions have single subject rules prohibiting this.
For example, if the goal of the law is to lower incidence of crime X and if crime X has not decreased by 10% by Jan 1st, 2026 the law automatically is voided.
I’m sure most would just be put right back through, but politicians would probably be wary of effectively signing on to the worst stuff again.
ORS 811.315 Failure of slow driver to drive on right
A person commits the offense of failure of a slow driver to drive on the right if the person is operating a vehicle upon a roadway at less than the normal speed of traffic at the time and place and under the conditions then existing and the person fails to drive:
---
So, when does this law expire and need to be renewed? If it was to expire and needed to be renewed, would it get a meaningful review as part of the renewal process?
How long would it take to go through https://oregon.public.law/statutes/ors_chapter_811 to renew each one? ... and then going up one level https://oregon.public.law/statutes/ors_title_59
If some individuals were protesting big government and refused to show up to establish quorum in a timely manner, would that result in there being no laws for the road? ... and would that be seen as a good thing?
I'm not sure the effect of this is so obvious. Clearly full-serve will have higher costs and lower margins - but then again, since it's all the same price customers might prefer full-serve and go to those stations that offer it. Will full-service have lower margins but make it up in volume? Or be some kind of loss-leader for selling snacks at the store?
I don't know - it just seems really strange? Like why not just allow them to charge more for full-service? What's the downside to the public of allowing this to just be another option?
We have both options in CA, and while full-service is somewhat rare, in most areas you can find it if you want it and are willing to pay more for it.
I’m curious if anyone from Jersey can weigh in on norms for their area?
I worked at one in PA growing up and most of my wages were from tips, sort of like being a server.
If gas stations charged more for full service, that would lead to an eventual decline in full service availability and use.
You would have a cycle where customers shift to self-service to save money, making full service even more expensive, meaning more shift to self-service, etc, etc
Why is that a bad outcome though? Few people want/need it, and it's certainly more expensive to provide, so this seems like a pretty reasonable outcome to me.
So obviously this means full service isn’t going away (it’s still legally required), but if it’s very popular, there might be a line for the full service pumps. Personally, I doubt it.
Not sure how the writer drew such a clearly wrong conclusion.
Edit: text from the bill
> SECTION 2. (1) A filling station, service station, garage or other dispensary where Class 1 flammable liquids are dispensed at retail may not designate more than the same number of fuel dispensing devices for self-service use by customers as are designated for attended service by an owner, operator or employee of the dispensary of Class 1 flammable liquids.
https://olis.oregonlegislature.gov/liz/2023R1/Downloads/Meas...
So many words to say "gas stations".
> may not designate more than the same number of fuel dispensing devices for self-service use by customers as are designated for attended service by an owner, operator or employee of the dispensary of Class 1 flammable liquids.
So many words to say "may not have more self-service pumps than full-service pumps".
Dammit, I hate legalese. Unfortunately, it's a requirement because some lawyer would nitpick what a "gas station" is, or what defines a "full-service" pump.
Even the term "fuel dispensing device" is ridiculous, but I know if the law said "pump", then a lawyer would argue that "pump" could refer to the actual device that pumps the fuel from the underground tank, and that one pump could go to multiple dispensers, so a g̶a̶s̶ ̶s̶t̶a̶t̶i̶o̶n̶ filling station, service station, garage or other dispensary where Class 1 flammable liquids are dispensed at retail could have two pumps, but one goes to 8 full-service dispensers, and the other goes to only 4 self-service dispensers, and not be in violation of the law because they have an equal number of pumps.
Because they would, and this is the main reason voters have rejected self-service in the past in Oregon. It's not like they would lower the price for self-service, they'd just raise it for full service. So of course people tend to vote to keep full service prices the same.
Believe it or not, gas stations do compete on price. Exceptionally located gas stations might have some ability to set their own price, but otherwise, if you have two gas stations next to each other, and one priced gas lower than the other, then the other will have to match it.
Which means either the gas price will go down by the cost of the labor for gas stations that are no longer needed, or every gas station owner is in collusion to maintain the same price (obviously false).
I haven't seen a full service lane at a gas station in years.
If the argument was supposed to be 'a smarter, well-functioning tax system that pays for government facilities' then say that. But such a statement would need some references to back it up.
I think Sales tax for most things is probably the fairest means of taxation. It can be applied equally between the wealthy and the poor. It is applied when you choose to get something, rather than arbitrarily before or after. It tends to be applied evenly whether you're buying a box of chocolates or a flatscreen TV.
Sales tax (and VAT) is regressive since poor people spend a much larger portion of their income on goods subject to sales tax.
I understand that $2.2 million is more than $2 million, but I find it kind of baffling that people spending that kind of money on that kind of thing are price sensitive.
One could argue that if they had the stones to keep the tax in place, eventually people relent and start purchasing high ticket items again, and it could have compounded to make a significant difference by now
[0]: https://www.baltimoresun.com/news/bs-xpm-1993-10-07-19932801...
[3]: https://www.everycrsreport.com/files/20020307_RS20314_f70eb8...
Still seen pfand deposits charged extra in Germany though.
That has to do with the merchant not wanting to show a price label inclusive of all taxes.
There could be a law requiring merchants to display a final price, but I have yet to see a jurisdiction in the US with a law like that so I presume it is not a politically popular enough of an issue.
Wait a minute, the register/POS figures it out just fine...
On the internet, taxes are based on shipping address, so there I think it would be impossible for a merchant to show tax inclusive price unless the buyer enters a shipping address first.
Local/state politicians can raise or lower taxes on all sorts of products with conditions attached for fun / electability.
www.accuratetax.com/blog/top-10-weirdest-sales-tax-laws/
If you live in a rural area, the government needs a budget to repair infra and run a few programs, it doesn't need the budget of NYC. Likewise, a government that lacks a sales tax mechanism doesn't "need to get the money elsewhere", it can simply go without and adjust it's services accordingly.
If I were a millionaire, it would be a very different story, and I would end up paying more in taxes. But if I were that rich, a relatively small change in my tax burden wouldn't have any real impact on my lifestyle, so who cares?
I think sales taxes are generally regressive. They disproportionately impact the poor and middle class, who spend a greater percentage of their income on taxable goods and services than the wealthy.
The other thing income tax disallows is tax avoidance through nonconsumption. I have to pay it all regardless of how much I consume, which I try to keep low.
It also means that my adjusted wages per hour are lower. Spent 70 hours a week on a pressing project? Congrats, you don't get paid OT so not only is your hourly wage lower, but your taxes per hour are disproportionately higher.
$0+/$0+ | 5.00%
$3,550+/$7,100+ | 7.00%
$8,900+/$17,800+ | 9.00%
$125,000+/$250,000+ | 9.90%
The marginal rate is 9% starting at your dollars above $8,900 single or $17,800 married. Yes, I rounded to 10% in my statements. Even low income earners relative to the median are taxed astronomically in Oregon. It is simply not a progressive policy. It is a painful policy at best.
Oregon has the highest effective income tax for people earning $75k[1].
[1]: https://www.cnbc.com/2023/02/27/states-with-highest-income-t...
Oregon and WA are exceptions in the US. Most states have both sales and income tax. WA has sales only, and OR has income only. Both have real estate taxes too.
I know a bunch of people in PA that cross the river to fill up in NJ just for that.
Was a nice perk and convenient since I was going to park my car there anyway.
I swear, I was the only person who would fill their tank and THEN park and go into the store.
That sounds so weird. Washingtonians and Oregonians are frightfully similar as it is. For better or worse :). I can't imagine it being any more magical than an Oregonian wondering what the protocol is for self-service when they go across the river.
Yeah, Oregonians and Washingtonians share some strange behaviors, but there are many things pretty alien between the two.
Handling of minor riots, drunkenness (on your own property, or not -- ok, sleeping on your front lawn), tipping, public transit (in populated areas), shopping, strip clubs, ... Wow.
- pull up to station in Oregon unaware, exit the vehicle and approach the pump. An attendant runs up to me yelling "You can't do that!! That's DANGEROUS!!"
- pull up to station in Washington, sit there. Didn't realize I was in Washington and nobody was coming to pump my gas.
- not knowing whether I am supposed to tip the attendants in Oregon. Different people told me varying things.
- feeling relieved to be in Washington and being able to simply pump my own gas without talking to anyone
Some Oregonians told me they enjoyed not having to get out of their car and thought the system was great. Also many had never pumped gas in their entire lives and weren't comfortable doing it when in other states. If this system existed in very cold places I've lived like Northern Minnesota I would have been quite happy about it - I don't mind a little wind and rain, but getting out to pump gas when it's -20 with a 30 degree wind chill is not comfortable.
Growing up pumping your own gas for you parents while they run into the gas station store or something makes you forget that not everyone knows it.
Oh jeez. Most people in Oregon live in Portland, across the river from Washington, and have pumped their own gas many times.
I'm sure the media will find some confused elderly people to put on the evening news, though.
I've never compared gas prices in Portland and Washington, but I'd expect them to be higher in Washington.
1. Washington has sales tax. Oregon does not. Washington will return that tax if the Oregonian keeps their receipt and files for a refund with the Washington Department of Revenue (it used to be that they could show Oregon ID at the time of purchase and the retailer would not collect the tax, but that changed in 2020.
2. Washington gas taxes are $0.11/gallon higher than Oregon gas taxes.
I'd thus expect Oregonians to try to avoid gassing up in Washington, and generally only do so when they are going to be going somewhere in Washington far enough from Oregon that they have to gas up there.
> 1. Washington has sales tax. Oregon does not. Washington will return that tax if the Oregonian keeps their receipt and files for a refund with the Washington Department of Revenue
How does this work in the case of gas, because one of the stipulations is:
> Purchases are for eligible items that will only be used outside of Washington state.
>Purchases are for tangible property/goods, digital products, or digital codes. Common examples include home appliances and electronics, household goods, and clothes.
https://dor.wa.gov/file-pay-taxes/apply-tax-refund/state-sal...
Seems like it would hard to show that you used a certain amount of gas outside of WA.
How will those rental car drivers from NYC ever manage!
But honestly, in states where you can pump your gas just drive around for an 1 hour with your eyes open. You'll pass by several other cars whose gas lids aren't actually closed ...
Last week he tried to help an older man who just gave up and left.
I think you overestimate how many people have ever pumped for themselves or are willing to learn.
Now the logistics at the pump may be another beast entirely...
But I was shocked to learn that the wife of a friend of mine had grown up in Oregon City (15 miles south of Portland) and she had only ever traveled to Washington state and had never pumped her own gas.
Pulled up. Put my card in, had pump in hand when this crazy person came running up and tried to take away the pump.
Much confusion for both us as I figured it was some homeless person trying to get money for a pointless job.
Something I see at some local attractions where they try to “help” with parking machines and such.
Been making fun of the state ever since and am cheering on East Oregon, breaking free from the nonsense
When I had a gas car up until two years ago, and I mostly got gas at CostCo. I did live in Virginia for three years. And I would say getting gas at CostCo in Oregon was 80% of the time faster than waiting for Virginians to pump their own gas at CostCo.
I'd rather not pump my own gas, and will miss the service. As will most people I know here.
Weymouth, Massachusetts (under 10 miles from Boston city limits) is one such town where you have to let the attendant operate the pump: https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/regionals/south/2013/11/14...
Also in Massachusetts is Milford, Upton and I believe Arlington. Huntington, NY is the other holdout I'm aware of.
What was funny about Oregon is self-service wasn't allowed based on county size (counties > 40,000 people). However, three counties allowed motorists to still pump their own gas at night (7PM and later I believe), just not during daytime.
I left to my friend's house and fueled elsewhere.
Friend informed me that it's law. However not every fueling station enforces it. The one right by his apartment complex did (and his family won't go to it).
Arlington is another case where it's rare that an attendant will give you hell or stop you, but some will, because the law is on the books.
--
In the case of Weymouth specifically, they passed a law before Massachusetts passed a state law. Until Weymouth repeals it (it's attempted periodically), it remains on the books.
At the risk of sounding a bit mean, it’s very easy to figure out. Most gas stations have screens that say “insert card, select gas”.
I don’t understand how anyone struggles with that.
I'm having a memory of trying to pump the gas for my dad when I was a kid. I got confused about what to do, so after completely filling up, I ended up swiping the credit card again after finishing the purchase, leaving the machine open to being charged again. My dad stood there and yelled at me, and the whole time I thought, I don't know what I did, so when he's done yelling I'll just gonna go ask the attendant.
“What are you doing??”
The caption isn’t wrong but it seems… kinda weird, no? At least for an article that’s focused on pumping your own gas. Is this a machine-generated caption?
https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/man-uses-credit-car...
An attendant at a gas station in Oregon actually washed my window the other day while the gas was pumping. First time I tipped a station attendant in years.
I'm born and raised in Oregon, and know how pump gas, but certainly don't like it.
You folks all got Stockholm Syndrome. It has been great just pulling up, giving your credit card, and having a friendly chat. Now get to be like everywhere else where cat litter is sprinkled all over the ground from people who can't be bothered to fill correctly and doing stupid shit like driving away while still attached.
1 step forward, 2 steps back.
Was there last year driving through and it was over 90F at 11:00p.m.
So... yes?
Edit: Ha, those two events were actually the same year.
I've also lived in places (New York, Colorado) where storms like that knocking out critical infrastructure is again, a yearly occurrence.
It's true, Oregon has way more extreme temperatures than I personally thought before this interaction, but it's still milder than many other places in the country I suppose.
Oregon is more than just Portland, but even Portland summers reach the 90s on a regular basis, and we've gone over 100 degrees several times in the summer. Winter usually hovers around 30-40 degrees, but sometimes dips to the 20s, and we've definitely had 10-20 degree cold snaps.
Go outside of Portland, and you'll easily find deserts that reach 100+ degrees on a regular basis, and highlands that go below zero.
I haven't been to a gas station in months, and maybe longer than a year. And IIRC that wasn't even to get gasoline, just to refill a propane tank. We have one remaining ICE vehicle (a pickup, which tows our travel trailer) and my wife takes care of that when she goes to Costco. Even then, it only gets driven a thousand miles a year or so, so she doesn't have to do it too often. Plugging in at home and starting every day with a full battery is really nice.
Never seen this before. But in my area there are only self-service pumps except for few Shell pumps.
Also, grew up on a farm with its own gas pump for the vehicles. Pumped a lot of gas.
In general/more substantively, I feel this is a place where the free market is an appropriate tool. If there are people like you, there should still be some full-service gas station attendants.
I think the law being repealed is great for one big reason: can you imagine having to work a job that you know for a fact is useless and unwanted by (almost) all of your clientele? That’s soul crushing shit right there
The law requires stations to still have full-service pumps. In fact, half of their pumps must remain full-service.
> SECTION 2. (1) A filling station, service station, garage or other dispensary where Class 1 flammable liquids are dispensed at retail may not designate more than the same number of fuel dispensing devices for self-service use by customers as are designated for attended service by an owner, operator or employee of the dispensary of Class 1 flammable liquids.
https://olis.oregonlegislature.gov/liz/2023R1/Downloads/Meas...
[0] EDIT: I should probably clarify that my frustration at the beginning of this comment is not directed at you, but how this information is being widely missed.
1. Smelly hands is an issue. That's the thing I hate most about dealing with self-serve.
2. There is no tipping of gas station attendants.
3. The main bottleneck in throughput is the number of pumps, not the number of attendants. I can't recall ever being in a situation where the problem was shortage of staff.
4. All the stories I've heard about dealing with terrible staff were from Portland. I haven't been there enough to comment on that.
How does that work economically? The staff cost must be enormous.
According to quick Googling the average markup on a gallon of gas $0.15 so the break-even point, so the break even point for gas station attendant making $14/hour (minimum wage here in NJ) is 94 gallons of gas or perhaps ~10 fill-ups.
However, I'm not sure many gas stations even make money on the gas itself. The popular model seems to be large gas & convenience store hybrids like WaWa, Sheetz, Royal Farms, etc. I think they just sort of break even-ish on the gas and make most or all of their profit selling snacks and drinks.
Despite that, NJ gas is still cheaper than neighboring states thanks to low gas tax. So that's another way things work economically... folks don't realize the true cost of full service since they are not paying it directly anyway.
As for my personal opinion: I did not grow up in NJ! This system seems bizarre to me. But I'll say two positive things about it.
1. It is very nice for the elderly or disabled. They don't have to pay more or wait extra time relative to everybody else.
2. There's a safety benefit. In other states, if you have to gas up your car in a sketchy area, that is a VERY popular time for people to harass you for money. Robberies happen this way too. Had a guy try some crap with me and my elderly dad just the other week at a gas station in a nearby non-NJ city.
- the attendants do multiple cars at once, up to 4 or so. while one car is filling, they go to another car at another pump.
- probably less than 1 minute of "work" per fillup (the rest of the time is just waiting for the tank to fill)
During peak busy periods I think the gas station attendants probably do 50 cars per hour each
No, you're just not paying them enough to do this job.
https://www.koin.com/news/oregon/what-do-people-think-gov-ko...
You can pump your own diesel, or your own gas for a motorcycle. But it was for Class 1 (I forget number) flammable liquids
There are so many failure cases, and most people that regularly pump their own gas are naive/blase about them. (Watching people at gas stations fill gas tanks while understanding that massive list of safety requirements, being very aware that all mistakes involve an explosive substance, and counting all the violations you can spot is one "fun" way to lose a lot of faith in humanity.)
Thankfully, there's a lot of regularly inspected safety equipment compensating for how blase so many people are. Modern pumps have all sorts of auto-shut-off sensors and require all sorts of (literal) firewalls and conscious designs. These have mostly eliminated a lot of the errors from being fatal in practice, allowing so many of naive and/or blase to live another day.
In practice in places like Oregon (and Japan) this was a jobs protection thing. It saved some low wage jobs from companies that had every incentive to eliminate those jobs to scrimp and save money. It was more useful to Oregon to keep those jobs than to let them disappear.
(Arguably Oregon is allowing them to disappear only just a few years in advance of them disappearing naturally because gas pumps are likely to start disappearing altogether as EVs become more prominent. They can't protect those jobs in the EV present.)
EVs were originally a "Woman's Car" because a petrol car would get the operator quite dirty while an EV wouldn't stain a dress.
There is no way gas stations on highways are going to close down in the next decade. But if your highway wasn't popular enough to currently have service stations at their rest areas then I don't have much hope your gas stations outside those areas.
Of course this does mean that you might have to drive ~40mins roundtrip to fillup your gas.
Not sure why they needed to say anthung, but the logic here is comically wrong.
Honestly not having to get out of my car was really nice in some weather. Other times there's just no one there, and you and a few other drivers are out of your cars looking around wondering if you should just do it yourself.
(You can easily Google to find out that of course there have been gas station explosions since 1951 in "the control group". Would some portion of them have been prevented by similar laws to Oregon's? Who knows; Oregon probably doesn't know, it was never Oregon's intent to run their regulations as a science experiment. It was Oregon's intent to deal with issues they saw in the past safety record of gas stations as they saw fit.)
Industrial substances need high standards. Within this calendar year we have been reminded of this repeatedly: train fires and derailment, the OceanGate submarine, the recent train bridge collapse carrying hazardous materials.
Gasoline can be fatal if consumed, is a known carcinogen, and is harmful to aquatic life so it needs regulation. Here is a safety sheet to warn you of the dangers https://lasierra.edu/fileadmin/documents/risk/safety/safety-...
It's important that we treat this substance with respect. Licensed operators should be the only ones handling it routinely. But of course, there's no surprise that Big Oil would like to socialize the risks and privatize the profits, speaking nothing of the job losses this will cause.
Therefore, Big Oil is not affected by this change and does not care about requiring or not requiring gas stations attendants.
> I think it should be obvious that [Oregon mandatory gas attendants law] ... is at least marginally an increase in safety.
I don't agree that it's obvious and doesn't need substantiation. Note that I am not disagreeing with your claim, just asking for substantiation.
Briefly during the pandemic, people could pump their own gas.
As an Oregonian, I welcome the change. The change will mostly mean not waiting for an attendant to come over.