‘OK, pal, step away from the pump’

— The folks in Oregon and New Jersey know good service. By law, they must.

In those states, it’s illegal for motorists to pump their own gas. Every filling station is full service, though in practice it doesn’t approach the first-rate service at places like the Shell station in the Heights neighborhood of Little Rock. There, attendants typically fill the tank, swipe your card and that’s it.

New Jersey banned self-service in 1949, afraid that amateur pumpers might set themselves or another ablaze, but back then self-service comprised only a small minority of filling stations in the country anyway. The state Supreme Court upheld the law two years later.

Since then, it seems every new legislature and administration has considered reversing the law. The current administration of Republican Gov. Chris Christie and his predecessor, Democratic Gov. Jon Corzine, tried to leave a legacy of self-service on his term of office, but while the efforts got the expected media attention, just as surely they went nowhere. Oregon similarly has had challenges to its law, but voters there disapproved.

It’s not as if stations in the other 48 states are laying waste to their busiest street corners in a hapless inferno, say proponents of self-service.

But then again, it’s not as if New Jersey and Oregon folks are paying top dollar for all this drive-through service, say advocates of the status quo. At $3.32 per gallon, the states had the 32nd lowest average prices on regular gas in the nation (and the District of Columbia) as of Friday, according to AAA - lower still than most of their coastal neighbors.

(Arkansas was 13th, at $3.12.)

Style, Pages 26 on 01/22/2013

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