I was filling up the minivan on Saturday when a woman at a nearby pump approached me and said, “Can you do me a favor? I don’t know how to pump my own gas.”
My first reaction was puzzlement. She was probably in her 30s, driving an SUV with what looked to be one or two kids inside. How could she be driving a car all these years and still not have figured out how to pump her own gas? Then she said something that instantly made it all clear.
“I’m from New Jersey.”
New Jersey, of course, is just about the only state left that requires that all gas stations within the state be full-service. Defenders of the ban on self-service pumps claim it is safer and more convenient for motorists and that it does not cause higher prices. None of those arguments hold water against the decades of successful experience with self-service pumps across the country. If a gas station attendant could pump your gas more safely and conveniently and at the same price, why do so few stations offer full-service anymore?
On top of its economic inefficiencies, the New Jersey ban on self-service is an insult to the good people of New Jersey. Their own state government is telling the world that its citizens are not smart enough or responsible enough to be trusted to handle a gasoline pump. When it comes to the routine task of filling up our vehicles, the paternalistic government of New Jersey treats its citizens as though they are children.
As I witnessed first-hand over the weekend, that paternalism can leave its citizens overly reliant on the kindness of strangers whenever they venture away from home.
