Shouldn't you be privy to this information?

[Moosenogger]

A few years ago while I was in college, I stopped at a gas station to fill up my tank. I don't normally do this, but I had extra money and figured I'd be one of those fancy people who actually fills up their gas tank.

After prepaying inside, I went back to my car and started pumping. Turns out the automatic shut-off wasn't working, because when my tank was full, gasoline started pouring out onto my clothes and shoes. Thankfully I noticed immediately and stopped pumping.

When I went inside to inform the gas station attendant that the pump didn't automatically turn off when my tank was full, she gave me a strange look and asked, "Is it supposed to?"

Um, yes? Or did gas pump technology degrade by a few decades when I wasn't looking?

[dalesys]

...the pump didn't automatically turn off when my tank was full, she gave me a strange look and asked, "Is it supposed to?"

When I was a diesel boy at Little America we had 2 or 3 nozzles fail (shut-off function) each day (out of 40). The station manager would rebuild them and they'd work again.

One of the lifers told on one winter night when the pump didn't shut off and around 3AM they looked out on a lake of diesel - several hundred gallons.

[mharbourgirl]

When I was a diesel boy at Little America we had 2 or 3 nozzles fail (shut-off function) each day (out of 40). The station manager would rebuild them and they'd work again.

One of the lifers told on one winter night when the pump didn't shut off and around 3AM they looked out on a lake of diesel - several hundred gallons.

Oh my god. Yeah, it's stuff like that that keeps my employers in business. We do environmental remediations, among other things. Well, technically we don't do the remediation itself. We do the assessment and come up with a long list of things that will need to be done to fix the mess. Soil removal is the EASY part. If that crap hit the local water table everyone is in trouble.

*walks off wibbling*

[Lyse]

I worked at a call center for three years that took maintenance calls from gas stations. Some of the people that called in...we were just astounded they hadn't found a way to blow up their tanks yet.

[Opalin]

o_o I am now far more glad that I have never had to encounter that.

[PepperElf]

I've had it happen before too. it wasn't soon afterwards that the gas station disabled the hands-free mode on the pumps.

cos that's how it happened to me... I was using hands-free mode and wasn't paying attention. after the mode was disabled they pretty much guaranteed everyone HAD to pay attention.

[PastryGal]

Yah when I used to work at Irving the self serv was non hands free but that didn't stop people from wedging their gas caps in to keep it going. Quite often we had to stop it from inside and tell them they couldn't do that.

[BrenDAnn]

A customer spilling gas is one thing. A delivery driver spilling several gallons by over filling the in-ground tanks...completely another. Yup. Saw that happen at my old C-Store. The driver didn't even tell me, either. In fact, I had not a clue, until the fire department showed up and started blocking the drives and cleaning the mess up. Well, okay, the overfill alarm did beep in the back room, but that thing tends to be sensitive anyway, and usually the drivers catch things before they get out of hand. Usually.