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?
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.
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!
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).
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 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
Look at this guy with his functioning brain that never forgets something just by walking 10 feet
Yeah I read it and was like “is this guy asking how you can forget something?”
Good 30% change I forget what I was in the process of doing if I have to walk through a door to get it done.
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.
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.
Drinks? Piss?
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 😆
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!
Judgey as fuck. People are not machines.
Done it before? lol
Nope. I’m just not dumb and cocky enough to believe I’m not going to forget something important.
