Oregon ends its 72-year ban on pumping your own gasoline

Seattle Sounders FC fans taunt the Portland Timbers during a 2011 MLS match in Seattle in 2011. (AP)

BEND, Ore. — If you've visited Oregon (as I am currently), you have likely had the moment of cognitive dissonance in which you hop out of your vehicle at a gas station to fill your tank just as you do anywhere else, then discover (or remember) that you must yield the pump handle to an earnest or sometimes surly gas station attendant who intercepts you and really doesn't want you stealing their job.

That's about to change. Oregon lawmakers last week gave final approval to a bill that ends the state's ban on self-service gas pumps, a prohibition that has been in place since 1951. The change will take affect ASAP after Gov. Tina Kotek signs the bill into law. The Oregonian newspaper says this leaves New Jersey as the only state remaining to require gas station attendants.

Having pump attendants at the ready is a vestige of the days in which most gas stations offered the option of "full service," even if there was another line of pumps offering self-service. (In those days, the attendant might do more than pump the gas; he would wash your windshield, check your oil, maybe even inflate a tire.) Pumping a flammable liquid was thought to be a bit dangerous for the average motorist.

Oregon's clinging to the law also had to do with preserving entry-level jobs; that said, in an economy that is enjoying near-full employment, stations have had a hard time filling these jobs, causing motorists longer waits as a few attendants flit between several pumps. As a result, the oil companies have wanted the law changed. The Northwest Grocery Association argued that allowing self-service wouldn't cost jobs, because understaffing had caused them to shut down half the available pumps anyway.