I’m glad that we are finally getting self-serve pumps in Taiwan. Some gas stations have one or two lanes of pumps dedicated for self-serve customers. It’s great and all but I hate that they removed the nozzle locking clips… Previously, I’ve only ran into shenanigans like that in Canada, and a few gas stations in New Zealand.
Here in Taiwan though, they do this at EVERY gas station, and remove the nozzle locking clip from every self-serve pump. WTH would you do that?
It’s not like they don’t have these nozzle locking clips on other pumps. All the non-self-serve pumps have them, and the kids filling your gas put the clips to use all the time.
This gas station that I go to all the time recently replaced their old nozzles, and I noticed the new nozzles still have the nozzle locking clips intact. So I used it, and walked around to inspect my car. A gas jockey saw me, and I could immediately feel he is calling his coworkers over, pointing at my pump and discussing intensely.
The next time I am at the pumps, the clips were removed.
They started doing this in the UK also, I mentioned it to the cashier once and he said it was the the new policy (this was a supermarket). Something to do with liability, if I’m holding the pump and spill the fuel it’s my fault, if the lock fails to disengage and it spills then it becomes argument time.
The nozzle has the auto flow stop mechanism though. If the customer could prove he or she held on to the lever, wouldn’t that still be the gas station’s responsibility?
The auto follow stop only works when it senses the tank is full. If the costumer decides to pull the nozzle out while it’s still going, the gas station might be liable for the mess…
Liability. Spunds about right. Dumb people and extremely flammable stuff. I notice many full serve now are also putting a cover on your mirror displaying which type you are getting. 92 95 98 or diesel
You can only imagine the issues a gas station employee must endure from customers day to day.
True dat!
In the gas station in used to go, the put a banner on the windshield. I find it quite useful, especially after one time when I said 92 and they placed the 95 banner instead. I was able to see and correct it before they started pumping.
Thought this was another gravedig at first! They’ve had self serve at my local stations for years now.
Having spent my youth working in gas stations I’m very glad they remove the locking clips, you wouldn’t believe how stupid some people are. You’ve seen how idiotic some of the driving is here, would you trust those same people with a locking clip!?
Assuming you don’t have a new fancy capless tank, just stick you’re gas cap under the lever.
LOL… thought the same damn thing first time I used the self serve. Eventually I stopped using the self serve because it really pissed me off (never mind the overly complicated card swiping machines)
Eventually I just figured that they want you to pay more for the gas and keep people employed (if I recall correctly, Oregon and NJ do not allow self serve)
There was this one gas station that was exclusively self serve so I basically stopped going there (at the risk of running out of gas) because it pissed me off so much. Recently, they’ve re-implemented full serve…
In Australia locking clips are banned (see article) for safety reasons. I know NZ is same. Most stations have only pre-pay pumps now. The only hassle I see is you have to put up with the vapor!
If you can’t trust people with the locking clip, which to be honest is a pretty simple device, how can you trust people to figure out how much money they need to top off their tank? The risk of over-estimating the amount of gas needed, especially in New Zealand, where tourists mostly rent cars to drive around and are unfamiliar with their rental vehicles, and causing spillage is extremely high.
I HATE prepay. Drove me nuts when we lived in NZ. The excuse in canada, so said the news, was people wouldfill up and run. This led to workers getting hit by cars. They have also started aligning gas station pumps in a way that you cant cut corners through easily which seemed to cause a decent enough number of hit people.
Inalways support full serve here. Not everyone is smart enough to go to the moon…so F them self checkouts and self pump etc etc things. When dickhead companies make self ____ the ONLY option, like Air Asia, i just make a point of nicely wasting an employees time to do everything for me. When they give me that look, just nod smile and whisper “job security”. Got an hour wait anyway and the airports here are boring. Might as well help staff keep their jobs haha.
Yes for sure. Doeant mean it must be supported. I get the bottom line, but eventually we must create jobs and spread it around a bit. Or become socialists. Just has to happen.
What country was that? In 1990s Germany I worked at a gas station for a while, but didn’t see anything remotely stupid… At least nothing involving gas.
But then I don’t remember whether we had locking clips. I do seem to recall using them once I had my own car not much later, but it’s so long ago I might be mistaken.
If I had to refill an empty tank, then using the lock feature allowed me to clean and squeegee all the glass, finishing up almost exactly when the tank was filled and the lock clicked off. The ability to lock the nozzle open is pretty handy if you value your time.
There are approximately one billion youtube clips of absent-minded people in Russia and the US driving off with the nozzle still stuck in the car and the hose pulled off at the pump.
One workaround I used to use was to use the gas cap and stick it in between the handle and it pumps by itself. You just need to be careful to know when to shut it off.
