<VV> Oregon & NJ Laws?

[RoboMan91324 at aol.com]

Tim,

I used to work for a couple of service stations in NJ way back when.  I was 
told (don't know for sure) that the law hails back to the real early days when 
cars were novelties and fuel was supposed to be pumped by "professionals" to 
help prevent fires and explosions which were not uncommon in the early days.  
Many states had laws like this but by the 50s - 60s or so most dropped them.  I 
guess that the automatic pumps had better static protection, the cars had 
more standard fill pipes away from the hot engines and most people knew of the 
dangers filling their tanks.  I don't know why NJ and OR are still living in the 
past after the other 48 states have demonstrated that the truly stupid will 
remove themselves quickly from the general population and everyone will be 
relatively safe.  I think that NJ still has a law on the books that requires a man 
with a lantern to walk ten yards in front of a moving horseless carriage day 
or night.

I hope that helps.

I agree that you need to be careful when you let the uninitiated under your 
hood or even behind the wheel.  Some old cars (like my 60 Vette; R-L-D-N-P) 
have unusual shift paterns and you don't want a teenage valet parking attendant 
hot-rodding it in the parking lot and having an unpleasant surprise when it 
takes off in an unexpected direction.  A valet may be a bit confused with our 
dashboard PG shifters and may try to push it all the way up into the "Park" 
position and leave it parked on a slope.  Are there any other automatic cars that 
don't have a "Park" function?

Doc
~~~~~~~~~~~
In a message dated 7/18/2005 5:45:00 PM Pacific Daylight Time, 
virtualvairs-request at corvair.org writes:

> Message: 4
> Date: Mon, 18 Jul 2005 20:14:07 -0400
> From: rt66vairs at aol.com
> Subject: <VV> Oregon Laws?
> To: virtualvairs at corvair.org
> Message-ID: <8C75A0DE9B84985-D4C-FD2F at FWM-D40.sysops.aol.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
> 
> I have been told that Oregon is one of only two states that have a law 
> forbidding motorists to fuel their own vehicles. The other being New Jersey.
> <snip>
> 
> If this is true could someone in Oregon explain why? Or someone from New 
> Jersey?
> 
> Tim (watching them "attendants" like a hawk) Abney
> IECC