Does anyone else gets annoyed when the Gas Attendant. .

Even in Washington, I also fill up outside of Seattle because prices there are too high. (BTW, I don't actually live in Seattle, just in the region.)

But when comparing your prices to ours, remember that we have higher fuel and B&O taxes, so our prices should be higher. Add in the recent $15 minimum wage mandate in Seattle, and labor prices are simply not comparable.

That soda is giving you metabolic syndrome. And at the gas convenience station, it is seriously overpriced. It is far cheaper at regular grocery stores.

I've experienced service both in Oregon, and outside that state when it was common nationwide. Service comes with exceedingly variable levels of competence, more opportunity to defraud the consumer (see examples posted earlier), and on average takes longer to complete the transaction. Clean windshields? Oregon mini-serve attendants don't normally do that, that is for the full-service lane. And due to a genetic eye issue, I have stricter standards for how clean the windshield must be, most other people (full service attendants included) don't do the job right for me.

Fortunately, 48 states don't prohibit that choice.

 

New Jersey is the other state banning self-serve, and it is mostly cheaper than neighboring states. That's because the gas taxes are lower, and their roads are starting to show it.

California is one of the most expensive states in the country, and that includes gas. Being less than them shouldn't be a major achievement.

 

Considering that OR has lower fuel taxes than WA and CA, and lacks CA's RFG requirements, your fuel prices are supposed to be cheaper.

The places I go, the single attendant is either too busy minding the convenience store to promptly service 6 to 8 customers filling up, or it is a Costco / Sam's Club with 16 to 24 fuel pumps to monitor. If that attendant must do all the pumping too, the waiting time will be incredibly long. The equivalent Oregon stations have a lot more employees running around, yet it still takes noticeably longer to get filled up.

 

Anyone hazard a guess what would happen in New Jersey and Oregon, oh and good ol' Coquitlam, BC, as soon as the ban was lifted on self-serve?

 

1. Updated pump labeling.
2. Spread between cash & credit price at those stations disappear being replaced with credit price.
3. Fewer aliens (mostly) will have jobs pumping gas so they will move on to doing something else.
4. Lots of whining.

Are you really saving any money by providing free labor for the business? Without seeing the books (most of us don't) I believe you are improving the net income.

 

Doesn't matter.
All I'm saying is the argument that we are paying more for gasoline in Oregon because of our ban on self serve, than our neighboring states is false.

I seem to of hit a defensive nerve with those with hands stained with unleaded.
Listen, you like self serve? Go ahead. Someday, Oregon may reverse the ban, and I'll find myself having to pump my own gasoline more often.
All I'm saying is there are advantages to NOT having self-serve, and as a resident of Oregon, I actually like it.

There are also some disadvantages. Such as occasional "Top Offs",- attendant errors. Living in a Non-Self serve State, also was a BIG reason I waited to buy my Prius for the Gen 3. I really didn't want to deal with the occasional problems the gas bladder can create, especially in a State where I couldn't pump my own gas.

I do have dog in this hunt, because I live in Oregon. And I have my opinion.
But if you love the All-American Freedom of Choice and the freedom to hop out and squeeze that pump trigger and watch the wheels spin? Enjoy.

 

I didn't claim you paid more than your neighbors because of the ban on self serve. I said you simply pay more because of that ban. With the ban, the station needs to keep more employees on the clock at any given time than without. Their wages are going to increase the price of gas. Competition will keep them from gouging, but this is an expense on all of them, and they aren't going to sell gasoline below their costs.

There are some full serve stations here. They tend to be 5 to 10 cents more per gallon than self serve. Without the ban, your gas prices would be lower than they are now.

 

Considering the large number of small stations that have closed and not been replaced, I'd suggest that their 'improved net income' was not enough to keep them afloat as viable business concerns.

 

I disagree...wait time's vary with any business or operation that is crowd influenced. But I actually think the professionally attended pumps clear faster than waiting on the public, who may or may not know what they are doing, or be more distracted pumping gas while on their cell phones.

 

But again your assuming because full service stations in a state that allows for self service charge a 5-10 cent premium, that "proves" that there would be a cost difference or lowering in cost if Oregon reversed the ban.
I do not buy that premise.

In fact I'd be willing to bet, gas prices would stay exactly the same and increase and decrease the same. My assumption is any cost savings owners of Gas Stations might gain from suddenly becoming self-services stations would NOT be given to the consumers, they'ed go right in their pockets.

In any case, I don't feel I'm paying siginificantly MORE than most other places in the entire US. And I don't have to pump my own gasoline. I take that as a win.

 

I wrote that based on actual and repeated personal experience in Oregon.

When traveling, I don't go to stations with waiting lines, but pick places with open pumps. Outside OR, that means I can start pumping immediately.

Inside OR, depending on conditions, sometimes an attendant appears promptly, sometimes there is a wait as they attend to the other customers. And don't forget that we need an attendant to appear twice: first to start the pumping process, and second to complete it by putting the nozzle away. While some states have safety regulations requiring the nozzle to be attended during the whole process, OR station employees don't do that, they nearly always leave in the middle. At busier times, this sometimes means two significant waits.

In Bend, I once forgot that it was Oregon and did the entire fillup myself. Wasn't discovered until I went inside to pay. I wouldn't describe them as short-staffed, lazy, or inattentive that day, just busy with the customer load.

 

Yeah, and I came to my opinion after living a lifetime IN OREGON as an Oregonian and automobile owner.

And I get it.- You LOVE the self service.

You'd miss the olfactory feedback of gas fumes. You love the hands on tangible pumping of the gasoline, the connection between pump and tank. The momentary musing of living a life with a blue collar job, as a working man. Living behind the station in a John Steinbeck novel. For a few seconds when the gasoline fumes actually reach the brain, you can see the whole pipeline, refinery to delivery, and you see yourself as a the final step in the process. From Dinosaur to Combustion. And you get the hands on final step. The whole process is a meditation. A liberating act of consumerism. You can be against off-shore drilling but on shore pumping? They'll pry that nozzle from your cold dead hands.

I don't like pumping my own gas, but...I almost envy you. It makes trips into Washington that much more exciting for me.

The imagined or real bonus of perhaps a chimerical 8 cents a gallon savings, that's the icing on the cake. But wash your hands before eating it.

I'm not raining on your parade. Enjoy the self serve.

Happy Motoring and Gasoline Pumping!

 

And a number of closed gas stations can be found around here. I suspect Labor Cost is not high on the list of reasons for closing. My three suspects are Environmental Costs, Rent, and Volume. An old 6 pump property is going to have to replace the tanks sooner rather than later and with Wawa building their superstores with 2 dozen gas pumps that's competition you don't want. Classic Chevrolet in Moorestown was torn down and replaced with a Wawa. I haven't counted but I suspect there are fewer gas stations but more pumps in the area.

 

You could be right that the stations would just pocket the labor savings. Until the station down the street starts undercutting them to get more people into their store where the real profit lies.
Either way, you are currently paying for someone to pump your gas. You not seeing any savings without a self serve ban doesn't mean that you are not.

 

To be honest?
I'm just tired of this discussion.
I live in Oregon, a State with a ban on self service. It's a rarity.

I don't feel my cost per gallon is being significantly impacted. Gasoline websites that track national averages on a State by State basis seem to support this reality. If you can somehow quantify the labor cost and it's impact on the cost per gallon...good luck. But overall? Oregon gas prices are not the highest nationally and not the lowest either.

I don't doubt that on some level, some way some cost is incurred. But I think it's minimal, and don't trust that the absence of a ban on self service would result in a reduction in cost.

There are disadvantages to full service. I admit to them. Attendants do sometimes make wholesale mistakes. Top off, over fill...etc..etc..

But for the most part, I'm happier that I don't have to pump my own gas, than I am upset by any realities created by the fact that I can't pump my own gas.

 

Either way you don't have the choice...so respectfully...what difference does happy make?

 

Happy....always makes a huge difference. With everything in life.

I don't want to speak for an entire state or population either, but I'd say the majority of Oregonians are also happy with the ban on self serve. There have been attempts to reverse it, and as I said earlier, Oregon stubbornly refuses to do so.

 

Correction there. You don't think it will result in a reduction in price. Price and cost are two different things. If the ban went away, the labor cost of full service would too. You believe you would be paying the same price, but the price will no longer have as high of a labor cost in it. Instead, you would be giving the owner more profit.

I go back to NJ fairly regularly, so I'm not concerned whether I pump the gas myself or not.

 

I'd be willing to bet it's more a case of just what everyone is used to.

 

I've always said this.
We're getting into a messy ground of semantic minutia here.

Don't ANYONE take it personal, but this is my last comment on this topic. I think I've stated my reasoning, and feelings completely. Anyone and everyone can feel free to disagree.

But I don't want to rehash the same arguments over and over.