New Oregon law leaves New Jersey as final state where residents can’t pump their own gas
A Rutgers poll show 73% of Garden State residents don’t want to pump their own gas anyway.
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New Jersey is now officially the only state in the U.S. where you can’t pump your own gas.
The governor of Oregon signed a new law this weekend allowing residents to fill up their own tanks for the first time in 72 years.
New Jersey has had has attendants since 1949. An act was passed, citing safety concerns for why residents shouldn’t pump their own has.
New Jersey’s ban on self-service pumps remains a source of pride for some in a state, where bumper stickers declare “Jersey Girls Don’t Pump Gas.”
A Rutgers poll show 73% of Garden State residents don’t want to pump their own gas anyway.
Since New Jersey has lower gas prices than New York and Pennsylvania, many drivers from neighboring states cross the state line to fuel up.
In 2015, lawmakers proposed ending the New Jersey ban, but the measure died because of opposition from the powerful state Senate president.
When Oregon prohibited self-service in 1951, lawmakers cited safety concerns, including motorists slipping on the slick surfaces at filling stations subject to Oregon’s notoriously rainy weather. In recent years legislators relaxed the rule and allowed rural counties to have self-serve gas available at night. Then they extended it to all hours in eastern Oregon’s sparsely populated areas, where motorists low on gas could be stranded when there’s no attendant on duty.
Under the new law, there can’t be more self-service pumps at a gas station than full-service ones. And prices for motorists must be the same at both types.
The COVID-19 pandemic labor shortage helped drive a renewed push to allow self-serve across the state.
A union representing workers at grocery store fuel stations in Oregon predicted job losses and called the the law a “blatant cash grab for large corporations.”
A few countries also ban it, including South Africa, where attendants offer to check fluid levels and clean the windshield, with tipping expected.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
