You drove and pulled up to the gas station to fill your gas tank. You exited your vehicle, opened your gas tank cover, grabbed and put the dispenser nozzle in. You also had to pay at some point.
How can you forget that the hose is still connected to your car when you drive off?
I have never heard of it happen locally, but seen countless posts from US with hoses sticking out of cars. For the longest time I had no clue how they manage to do it, surely they aren’t so much dumber than us?
Then I learned that american pumps are different to ours. Here you have to hold the trigger the entire time to pump, while there one can just leave it in and wander off.
surely they aren’t so much dumber than us?
LOL
We also have trigger-locks on EU pumps.
Coworker did it three times. Autopay by the nozzle, fuel cap on other side of the car, not looking at side mirrors, Bingo!
Why would the fuel cap be on the other side of the car from the filly filly gas hole?
Fuel cap and filling hole on the passenger side and not on the driver side
Not only is that not what you said, but that doesn’t inherently increase the risk of driving off with the nozzle in the car.
(On some vehicles)
I don’t get this?
So they go out of the car, put the pump in, pumped it, forgot to take pump out, paid, went back into the car, and drove off?
With autopay the payment is done automatically by reading a proximity device on the filling hole, with credit/debit cards you put the card in to activate the pump, not at the end of pumping.
Go out of the car, put nozzle on other side of the car, go back inside the car waiting for it to be done, assume a station worker took the nozzle out, drive, hear a station worker screaming, drive back to return part of the pump.
Your not thinking about it. Muscle memory.
Something distracts you, a phone call, a loud sound, kids, suddenly remembering a urgent matter. You forgot where you were in the process and just skip a step.
Human nature. The same reason drivers can just run into a wall, car and train! Routine becomes ignore and you just forget / zone it out
This is why almost self driving cars are so dangerous. They will throw people into responsible driving mode and they won’t have been paying attention.
My FIL did it three times and his answer was “lol” so iono
Alcoholic? Not playing on the drunken stepdad meme just thinking that’s an alcoholic thing to do.
Possibly. But throwing that out there is ridiculously presumptuous because you have nothing upon which to base that.
“Oops, hah pulled the pump again for the third time chuckles to self”
(for his sake I hope it was drug or drink)
Dude just getting him to remember to close up his garage or truck was hard enough. Fortunately (for him) he spat his sunflower seed shells in there so it was too disgusting to want to rob. Like, he didn’t even spit them in a cup he just gobbed them on the floor. I don’t know how many times we’d roll up and find both his garage and his truck, all the doors wide open and they’d been that way for hours. First few dozen times it’d happened the neighbors were worried, but after that they just ignored it.eyi
My mom can be like that sometimes, she’s always had bad memory lapses in the strangest of times. No drug or drink, and no sunflower seeds or nasty anti-burgular precautions, but once she called me in a nearly empty Walmart parking lot after close because she couldn’t find her car and thought someone had stolen it. She called me when I was about 5 minutes away saying she found it, it just wasn’t where she remembered parking it. In a nearly empty lot.
And I misread FIL as stepdad. That’s a much better life outcome for you 😆
It has nothing to do with when or how you pay.
It’s all about the lock that lets you leave the nozzle pumping while you go do something else. That’s what makes it easy to forget you have the nozzle in your car, since you’re not holding it for the entire filling process.
Do some countries or areas have gas pumps that you just insert and then they pump without you constantly squeezing the handle? The ones I’m used to feel kinda impossible to forget because there is no reason to ever let go of the hose handle until it’s back in place.
and you can’t even pay until it’s back in place
Er, you pay at the pump with your card beforehand in most places now
The USA is weird… You’re in one State and you aren’t allowed to put fuel in your car by yourself then you cross the border to the next State and you can put fuel by yourself AND you can do it without having to hold the nozzle while it’s pumping…
That’s just New Jersey, and if you’re in New Jersey you have bigger problems anyway.
Oh wow, Oregon got rid of that stupid law!
Imagine that, you’ve got people there that had to put gas in their car for the first time in 50+ years of driving!
I bet the mechanics had a great few months.
Yes, the ones here (California) can be set to keep pumping automatically until the tank is full and then stop.
But why would you leave the pump before it’s done? Even if you don’t have to hold the handle, what else are you going to do for 20 seconds.
Get out of the cold?
What kind of tank you have that fills up that fast?
Sometimes I clean my windshield, sometimes just spend a minute on my phone or rearrange stuff in my car
Drinks? Piss?
Wisconsin, too.
Aha, then I could easily see myself making that mistake during a tired and stressful day if my phone rang while paying or something.
For anyone curious. this is how those things work.
I assume the only part missing for the european nozzles is the little latch that holds it open.
As a European: we got the latch.
Yep, the pin is removed. There are tools to act as pin available. (Nails for one)
We also have trigger-locks on EU pumps.
Thanks for the responses.
TIL: Americans pay first, then fill. Now I can understand how you could easily get distracted once it is in and locked.
To clarify : this is absolutely impossible to accidentally happen in the EU, because the payment transaction isn’t completed until the nozzle is placed back onto its support (that’s when the pump shuts off).
It’s also impossible in India because they pump it for you and you’re not even allowed to do it yourself
That’s how it is or was in many places in the US. Not many states do it anymore.
I think it’s only New Jersey now. It used to be Oregon also but I think late last year they removed that requirement.
You are correct that it is no longer required in OR but many places at least still offer it as an option
That doesn’t make it impossible. Nozzle finishes, then you drive off before the attendant removes it. Quite possible.
What do you mean by the transaction isn’t complete? Does it hold your card until the nozzle is put back, or do you pump then pay after?
So are Europeans just more honest and ethical than Americans? Or do all gas stations have better theft prevention systems? In the US, there is often 1 cashier managing 12 pumps AND ringing up vice sales (cigarettes, lottery tickets, junk food). In some states there a pumps with no human on site at all.
What’s to stop someone from driving off after filling up in the EU?
In all EU countries I drove trough, the pump doesn’t auto-start when you unhook the nozzle from the pump. I think the cashier has to manually allow it to start, from their control system/computer.
So I suspect they glance at clients through the shop’s window/cameras, and they don’t start the pump if you look shady (hooded, no plates on vehicle) and they suspect you may run it off.
For example if you ride a motorbike, the cashier sometimes doesn’t start the pump until you remove your helmet / uncover your face (allowing cameras to see your face).
And yes, after filling-up you then need to go pay at the desk. There can be a waiting line if there are more pumps than open cashdesks.
You could easily tank then gun it. But there are cameras everywhere. They have your face & plates.
there a pumps with no human on site at all.
For these we need to swipe a payment method before the pump starts. It locks a sum on your card, say 200EUR, and when you hook the nozzle back it adjusts the payment transaction to only the amount consumed and debits you.
Probably a combination of better theft deterance, and peoples expectations for convenience. In NZ there’s a mix of some stations that let you fill before paying, and some that don’t. When some stations first started operating on the pay first model it felt really inconvenient and annoying, so I guess it’s also a way to compete with other stations apart from price. Some stations will probably eat the cost of theft if it results in better sales.
Also probably that there’s other types of crime that are more popular in Europe. Maybe because registering a vehicle is more of a hassle in many countries there than in many states in the USA? So criminals are less inclined to do crimes that will get thier vehicle wanted from cctv footage, unless they can easily steal some plates from another vehicle.
In the UK, petrol stations almost always have CCTV monitoring pumps, and can use number plates to identify anyone who leaves without paying. Probably similar in the EU I would think.
That said, it’s also increasingly common to have a pay at the pump system, where you have to use your credit/debit card before you can fill up, with the amount being taken off automatically based on how much fuel you used.
What’s to stop someone driving cross-country or even just for a 1-off fill up and wearing a hat and glasses and covering their plates with cardboard and tape right before coming and going?
E: someone else in the thread mentioned an attendant will make sure they can see people’s faces before starting the pump
How did it work before automated monitoring?
A lot of pumps in the US don’t shut off until the nozzle is placed back on the hook, at least if you pay at the pump. It’s possible that the pump could shut off if you prepay with cash and it hits the amount that you paid, but that’s not as common these days. It used to be possible to pay with cash after pumping, but that’s basically been phased out.
Follow-up question for Americans : what happens if you pay for, say 50$ and end up only filling up 40$? Can you go back to the cashdesk and ask for a refund on the difference?
Depends, if it’s prepay by credit card you only get billed for amount used regardless of how much you tell the cashier. If you prepay by cash you have to go get change.
Most pump transactions are just done by credit or debit card and you are billed for actual use.
Yes you can, and it is a normal situation to be in.
How can you forget that the hose is still connected to your car when you drive off?
I think the key step here is to not remember it.
tired, distracted. Drunk and/or high and needing munchies.
Or you just have adhd. I have a habit of doing 3 checks before driving off so this doesn’t happen to me. One as i get into the car, one look in my side mirror, and one look at the pump to make sure the handle is back in its place, and I’ve almost driven off without putting it back still.
One moment you’re pumping gas, the next you’re already switched into gear, whatever happened between those two is anyone’s guess.
Never did manage to do that, but was close twice (none of my car would let you drive with a open fuel tank cover).
First was babybrain. Extended periods of not sleeping more than 1.5h in a row and not more than 4h a day in total because your kid is sick/toothing are doing weird things in your brain.
The second time was during COVID. I work as a paramedic part time and we did change our shift model to 24h shifts due to so many sick colleagues. Was the second shift “in a row” (24h on, 24h off, 24h on). Well…None of those shifts were 24h, most were 25-26h. Because we got hammered by calls. Literally no downtime, one critical patient after another. When driving home I had to get gas. Forgot to pay (we post pay here), forgot to take the god damn hose out. Nearly cried when the fucking car didn’t start (due to the hose being in).
So TLDR: Not enough sleep is the answer for me here.
I was drunk and couldn’t drive, so my wife took me to get more beer. She asked me to put gas in our vehicle so I did because it was cold out. I noticed the pump behind me had the nozzle sitting on the ground which was hilarious to me. I took a snapchat picture and posted it saying “what a dumbass!” then I went inside to get my beer.
I get back in the truck and I’m having a grand old time showing my wife what the idiot behind us must have done when I hear the “CLUNK”. I was told I turned as white as a ghost. I’d done it. It was my fault.
I went inside, the cashier knew I was drunk (I was being obnoxious). I was profusely apologized and admitted it was all my fault. She went outside with me, explained it didn’t break and that they can reattach it, BUT there’s a charge.
The cashier then said to me “get in your truck and get as far away as possible immediately. I didn’t see you, this didn’t happen, and I don’t know what happened to the camera footage. Have a nice night.”
I hopped in the truck and just told my wife DRIVE. Security came rolling up as we were leaving (by chance).
Cool cashier!
You pull up. Get out. Put the nozzle in. Then you go inside. There, you wait in line for 5 minutes, because the dick from another pump decided to buy a fucking coffee and a sandwich, and the only employee is busy making those for him, instead of operating the pumps. Then you actually pay and get the gas flowing. By the time you’re back at the car, it’s already finished pumping.
So, there can be a time gap of several minutes with multiple actions and distractions during it. Is it really that surprising people forget to pull the thing out, occasionally?
As where I live you pay for the gas after you have filled it up and you hold in the pump handle the entire time, with going inside to pay and return when it has finished pumping being impossible. So yes it is quite hard to imagine how people can forget it., it would require some skill to do that here.
Yeah, I know. Most comments in this thread say the exact same thing.
However, it’s obviously not the case everywhere.
The OP didn’t exactly specify where he lives and only said that you have to pay “at some point”, so I’m giving my point of view.
Obviously it’s harder for forget it you have to hold the thing, but that thing isn’t universal.I actually did know that, I have never heard about gaspumps that doesn’t require someone to hold the handle, until this post.
I knew that in someplace of the US an attended will pump the gas for you, but that doesn’t change anything in how they are operated. It dose in some regards make it more difficult to drive of with it still attached, but more understandable if you somehow managed to.
So… OP…
I gotta ask… why this question? I feel like there’s a story here.
I saw yet another online post of someone driving off, ripping the whole station off the ground, starting a fire…
I did it once. You pay first at pump, I went into store to get snacks, came back kids melting down in back seat, dealt with that, got in and forgot all about it. Remembered just as I pulled about 6 inches too far away. Oops.
Any damage?
They made me pay to replace the quick disconnect $50 - but I’ve read mixed reports on them either being easily reconnectable in 20 seconds or one time use replace only. I was embarrassed so I paid the dude. He was mostly just like “oh mannnn really?”.
Ouch. Well there you have it!
I was stoned
