One US State Still Prohibits Americans From Pumping Their Own Gas. Here's Why
It’s a sad state of affairs that in the Land of the Free, Americans are still fighting for the freedom to pump gas.
For the first time since the Truman administration, Oregon drivers will be permitted to grab a fuel hose and fill their gas tanks all by themselves.
Governor Tina Kotek on Friday signed legislation, which went into effect immediately, that lifts the state’s 72-year ban on self-serve filling stations, leaving New Jersey as the last state in the US with a prohibition on self-serving gasoline stations.
Many Americans probably have no idea such bans still even existed, as ridiculous as they may be. Yet New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy says he has no intention of lifting the Garden State’s ban.
“On self service gas — it’s been sort of a political third rail in New Jersey, which I have historically not crossed,” Murphy recently told a local news station. “I’m not necessarily signing up for that because I need to understand the impact.”
It’s unclear what Murphy means by “understand the impact”—more on that in a minute—but it’s important to scrutinize the stated purpose of such laws.
New Jersey’s law, like Oregon’s, ostensibly stemmed from safety concerns. In 1949, the state passed the Retail Gasoline Dispensing Safety Act and Regulations, a law that was updated in 2016, which cited “fire hazards directly associated with dispensing fuel” as justification for its ban.
If the idea that Americans and filling stations would be bursting into flames without state officials protecting us from pumping gas sounds silly to you, it should.