<p>I think that the point that is being made, and it is a good one, is that we shouldn’t need a law to force everyone to pay that. If there is utility in having someone pump your gas, then people will voluntarily pay it. I agree with that. </p>
<p>I think that what people are afraid of is the scenario mentioned above: if offered a choice between paying 6 cents per gallon to have someone pump it for you or pumping it yourself, most people will eventually gravitate to pumping it themselves. Once this happens the attendant will become under utilized and then his cost will have to be amortized over fewer customers, thus driving the cost of “full serve” to be more than 6 cents. Obviously, this would drive even more people toward self serve until full serve becomes a dinosaur.</p>
<p>Don’t forget the extra time it takes for an attendant to pump gas as opposed to doing it yourself. $1.20 per week can be a lot for someone living on low wages.</p>
<p>$1.20 per week/per family is not a small number for an industry. Consider the gum industry. If they made $1.20 per week/per family less than what they make now, they’d be in the red most likely. Have you ever thought “how can this business survive when I’m only spending $1 on them a week?”. The answer is that many other people do the same thing which is why this meager dollar amount is not so meager after all.</p>
<p>Let’s say families in New Jersey are 5 people each. There’s about 8,724,560 people in New Jersey. That’s 1,744,912 families. That’s $2,093,894.4 a week. That’s $108,882,508.80 annually. Now, let’s figure out how many $25,000/year jobs are lost. 4,355 jobs @ $25,000/year are lost. 7,321 jobs @ 40 hr/week @ NJ minimum wage are lost.</p>
<p>And these figures are just for the price of gasoline. Incorporate all that lost time waiting for the attendant and it’s way WAY more time.</p>
Most of us on this forum may not care about $60 a year, but that’s a few days worth of take home pay for some lower income folks. I’m sure all those folks in NJ would love to keep that $60… but the NJ law restricts their right to make that decisions for themselves. Taxes (and the mandatory service essentially amounts to a tax) on purchases of any kind (apart from perhaps the mansion tax) always disproportionately effect lower income populations. NJ’s higher sales tax doesn’t help either for the same reasons.</p>
Despite all of your lovely economic analysis, the empirical evidence from states that have moved from full service to self service is that the cost of gas does not go down. You may claim that this violates economic theory, but them’s the facts. (Just like the minute oil goes up, so does the price at the pump, but when oil goes down, like it used to, oil companies argue "But you’re paying for the more expensive gas already in the pipeline.)</p>
<p>This is the strangest law I’ve ever experienced. I’m so conditioned to handling my own fill ups I feel guilty for sitting down while someone else does the work on my vehicle.</p>
<p>I attributed the curious law to a number of unfortunate (former) NJ residents who apparently ignited themselves during the fairly simple process of fueling. ;)</p>
<p>My husband liked the fact that last year he got to fill up in NJ for much less than CT and have someone else do it (although it did feel weird) Their prices are always lower than CT.</p>
<p>You can’t apply econometric analyses of one state at a certain time to another state at another time. You have too many variables.</p>
<p>Furthermore, alluding to how gas prices change in response to oil prices has little to do with the full-service law. Labor costs have nothing to do with gas left in the pipeline.</p>
<p>Even if you are correct in that NJ’s gas prices will not change after the law has been repealed, that does not lend itself to economic truths or theory. It just proves that in that very specific set of circumstances, gas prices will not change.</p>
<p>There are tons of reasons why the gas prices did not change when full-service laws were repealed. It could be because gasoline price increases coincided with the repeal of the laws. A 6 cents/gallon increase is not that rare. It could have to do with all the permits needed to create a gas station and refinery. Who knows? You can’t keep these variables these constant.</p>
<p>From my experience the price difference between self-serve and full-serve in states that allow self-serve is generally 25 cents per gallon. Another reason why we here in Jersey like it just the way it is. </p>
<p>I’d be curious to hear from others around he country as to the price difference between both in your state.</p>
<p>What tends to happen is that in states that allow the freedom of customer choice :), many of the stations will end up as self-serve only since there tends to be very little demand for full-serve due to the price difference. All the stations I go to, which includes Shell, Chevron, and others, are only self-serve so I rarely see the price difference and pay little attention to it anyway since I always pump my own gas even when given the option of having it pumped for me but then, I’m a DIYer.</p>
<p>Only on CC could a riff on people in NJ not knowing how to self-serve gas become an econometrics argument over unskilled labor and a debate on the meaning of “civil liberties.” ha ha.</p>
<p>I love this thread. One one side are the economic theorists and people who think that the right to pump your own gas should be a Constitutional right. On the other side are NJ residents, those who are so clearly the ‘victims’ of the unfair, unjust, immoral law that is going to sink our nation into a deep recession. And yet, these NJ residents do not want to be liberated from this oppressive law. I say, let these stupid New Jerseyites suffer under the law, they deserve nothing better.</p>
<p>Actually, the other states do have a say, given the Commerce Clause and given that a good deal of interstate commerce depends on NJ gas stations.</p>
<p>Hahah this exact same thing happened to me the other day when I was driving up to Penn State, I live in NY. I got out and put my credit card in and the guy was like “You can’t do that, stop”
“Can’t do what I’m pumping gas, at a gas station”
“Its illegal to pump gas in NJ, we can get fined 1,000 dollars and be sued”
“HAHAHA okay”</p>
<p>I’ve been living in NY for 18 years and I never knew that it was illegal to pump your own gas in that state.</p>
<p>I LOVE driving in New Jersey. It’s got the least expensive and most convenient gas compared to the states around it, and we fill up in New Jersey on purpose, rather than doing so in NY or DE or elsewhere.</p>
<p>I find it hysterically funny that a few people are so up in arms about the “don’t pump your own” law. There are lots of things you might be able to do safely that you don’t get to do, and to get upset over this one… well, at least you’re entertaining!!</p>
<p>I have never heard of such a thing. I would have been like RM, just getting out of my car to pump gas only to be stopped by a furious attendant.</p>
<p>My only question is to all those people who complain about getting out during the rain. Why? I’ve never gotten wet at the gas station. They are all covered, aren’t they?</p>