Oregonians to be allowed to pump their own gas

Oregon residents may get a taste of freedom and self-reliance. I know doing new things is hard, but I promise that anyone with an IQ above my age when I was in Oregon for college will be able to figure it out.

Okay, if this happened every time someone pumped my gas, I might have to jump on the anti-self-pump bandwagon. But in my five years living in Oregon, this hasn't happened once and I'm now pissed about that. // photo by Andrea Piacquadio

By the time I arrived at Oregon for college when I was seventeen years old, I had been pumping my own gas for two years, longer than some of my professors. It was always a weird culture, to not be able to perform a simple, menial task such as this.

This all may be coming to an end, finally, as the Oregon legislature introduced legislation to allow customers to pump their own gas. Of course, to not send the entire state into a state of panic, a certain amount of pumps would still need to be full service.

My experience was that Oregonians were fiercely defensive about their mandatory full service at gas stations as if the mere suggestion people should make their own decision about self-service meant you think their children should be sold into slavery.

The negative aspects of a law forbidding people to pump their own gas should be painfully obvious. The most obvious being that gas costs would be much higher than they otherwise would be, given that you would have to pay either a person or a small standing army, depending on how busy the station is, to insert a pump and press a lever. Oh, and insert a small plastic rectangle into a slot. That's advanced kinesiology, right there.

"Well, California's gas is more expensive," I've heard in response, thinking that proves paying people for unnecessary work does not increase the cost of a product. California, of course, has much higher gas taxes, at 66.98 cents per gallon, compared to Oregon's 38.83 cents per gallon, as of 2021. California also has much more stringent laws concerning gasoline and its refinement, causing major bottlenecks in production. Did you know, just for an example, that California's environmental regulations are such that the state cannot import gasoline since the blend is too expensive for outside producers to care to make, forcing all the production to be almost exclusively in California? For another example, California implements a cap and trade system, that limits emissions and auctions off its credits, a system explicitly designed to make burning gasoline more expensive.

I'm old enough to just barely remember full-service pumps in California and the uptick in prices from self-service was enough for my mom to never entertain the notion of pulling up to the gas attendant. Not too long afterward, the price difference drove pretty much everyone to pump their own gas and full service is now nearly completely gone because the consumer decided the extra price isn't worth the service. It's basic economic sense to understand an increase in costs necessitates some kind of price increase and/or quality or operational decrease.

It's not difficult to see other detrimental aspects of this policy. It was odd and irritating to find out that many gas stations have closing times, though now I have a Costco membership, I get closing times in California too, which seems insane until one realizes that Costco makes money from membership fees. But nearly every major gas station is open 24/7. Sure enough, some drivers out in rural Oregon have been stranded at gas stations because, surprise, rural gas stations can't afford to pay people to be on staff with the hope that two customers might drop in during the wee hours of the night.

Another defense I've heard offered up is that the law creates jobs. It creates jobs! No, this was not a politician I was speaking to. You know what else creates jobs? Mandating a thirty-ton pile of rocks to be moved from Beaverton to Ashland and back again every month. You know what else creates jobs? Mandating that the rocks may not be moved by trucks or trains. You know what else creates jobs? Mandating that the rocks must be moved by a giant 282-mile human chain.

You get the point. Just because it creates jobs doesn't mean it's necessarily good or even sane.

When everyone is forced to pay more for gas, causing more strain on personal finances as well as business operating costs, extra jobs are a net drain on the economy, wasting resources that could be better allocated doing more productive things.

It seems insane to me that I need to even say these things.

This is what happens every time
an Oregonian pumps their own gas,
apparently. // photo by Torben Buhl

What's even less sane are people scared to death of pumping their own gas, as if it would result in gas stations blowing up left and right. You know, because these Petroleum Displacement Engineers currently working at the gas stations must have gotten PhDs in gas pumping while going through a rigorous state certification program through a postdoc position at a university in order to be able to do the things they're doing now. It's not even like they're being forced to pump their own gas, as there will still be full-service stations throughout Oregon. So it's not that they're scared of being forced to pump their own gas, it's that they're scared they might lose the ability to force their preference on others. I haven't seen people so scared of a bit of freedom since, well, this last pandemic.

This bill, as well as several others in recent years regarding the ability to pump one's own gas, has brought out some funny comments from the craziest, most trained to be useless people in the state, though thankfully, they are in the distinct minority. One has to wonder how one makes it through life, never leaving their home state in a car.

Representative Rob Nosse actually used the argument "something quirky and charming about our state would be lost," to oppose past legislative attempts for gas pumping freedom, possibly the most intellectually bankrupt argument someone with influence has made. One quickly sees the lengths people will go to in order to maintain some weird perception at the cost of other people's checkbooks.

On the plus side, it has resulted in some light-hearted self-deprecating jokes.

Nevertheless, I am grateful that Oregonians can finally have the freedom to choose whether or not to pump their own gas, a freedom the rest of us (except New Jersey, but they are hopeless) have taken for granted for far too long.

Just in time for electric cars to start sweeping the gas-powered cars off the road. Maybe soon, Oregon will pass a law stating that people may not plug their own cars into their outlets and be forced to call a licensed Electrical Conductivity Engineer to go to their house to plug it in.

BONUS:

For any Oregonians (or New Jersians looking to step foot outside their state) who don't know how to pump gas, here is an extensively detailed step-by-step instruction on how to pump gas as you forage into this bold, unexplored world of gas pumping.

1. Pull up to the pump on the correct side. You know how to do this already. And yet, you had to do it for the first time at one point in your life. You're an expert at this now.
2. Open the gas cover. You should know how to do this already, as a gas station attendant has asked you to do this before. Unless you have one where you open it at the lid. In that case, we'll get to that later.
3. Unbuckle your seat belt. I cannot stress this enough. You don't want to try to get out of your car without doing this step.
4. Open your door. It's probably a chrome handle. Pull on that to get out. If it doesn't work, try unlocking your car.
5. Step outside. If you've been driving for a while, it may take a second to get your land legs back under you.
6. Walk up to the pump and open the gas lid on your car if you didn't or couldn't do step 2. Either push on it on one side or use the indent to pull it open. If neither works, go back to step 2 and try again. This is the first time you've ever driven your car to a gas station. If you've done this step and step 2 several times to no avail, look at the front of your car. If there is a horse there strapped to your car, you're in the wrong place.
7. Open the gas cap. Yes, there is another barrier to the gas tank. If the gas cap is not attached to the car, put it in the back side of the gas lid. If you put it on the roof, you will drive away with it still on the roof and you'll never see it again.
8. Pull out your credit card that has the highest cashback for gasoline. If you're impulsively bad with money, use your debit card. Insert it into the machine where it fits or tap where it says "tap here". If paying with cash, go inside and talk to the cashier after taking note of which pump you're at. If paying with Dogecoin, go inside and negotiate with the cashier, but only if the cashier looks like he's under 25 or if he's a bearded hipster.
9. Go through the steps on the screen. Don't buy the car wash. Or buy it. I don't care.
10. Do you have a diesel car? If so, use the green pump. If you don't have a diesel car, for the love of all that is gasoline, don't insert the green pump. For all normal people, use the regular pump that is typically black. Remove the pump from the holster and insert it, tip side, into the hole you just uncovered by unscrewing the gas cap. It's easier than that one time you tried to lose your virginity to your pencil sharpener.
11. Select the octane you want. Don't just say it at the machine like you've said it to the gas attendant all these years. It won't understand you (yet). Press the button. If you're in Colorado, don't ever push that 85 button unless you like pinging noises coming from your engine. 
12. Press the lever handle on the pump. Feel free to use the tab to lock the lever in place. It will pump until the tank is full. How does it know when? I don't know. Dark magic, probably. If you don't utilize the tab, just keep pressing on the lever and know the coeds in the next car over are making fun of you.
13. If you've taken the option of auto-pumping, pull out your phone. If you're under 24 and don't care about your privacy, watch the latest hot TikTok dance video. If you're over 70 and don't care about your privacy, go learn about what kind of breakfast your friend's cat had that morning on Facebook. Better yet, put down the phone and go wipe down your front windshield so you can see me driving on the road as you drive, squinting, toward the sun. Exception: If you're a libertarian, go on Twitter and argue with someone, anyone, because they're wrong. If you're banned on Twitter, which you probably are, hand out your copies of Economics in One Lesson and Pocket Constitution to everyone in the gas station as they desperately try to avoid eye contact with you.
14. When the pump pops, go back and remove the pump from your car. Replace the pump into its holster. Resist the urge to recreate the Zoolander scene. If you skip this step, you will look like an idiot driving down the road. with a pump tube flapping in the wind. But hey, you get a free gas pump to practice with!
15. Put your gas cap back on. Righty-tighty!
16. Close the gas lid.
17. Select no when it asks you if you want a receipt. What, you want to kill trees, you gas-guzzling monster?
18. Walk back to your car, open the door, and get in. 
19. Why did you get into the back seat? Get out and get in the driver's seat. Jesus.
20. Put on your seat belt. Or don't put it on. You're an adult (probably) and can make your own stupid decisions.
21. Turn on the car. Check the fuel level. If it's pointing to F, hooray! You did it! If it's pointing to E, it's time to reevaluate your life.
22. GTFO before the station explodes.

Congratulations. You are no longer a gas virgin! Or did you give up at step number 6 and resign yourself to buying a new car every time it runs out of gas? Goddamned politicians and their deregulation...