Fuck ads at the gas pump
Idk if this is the right instance for this, but how fucking tired of these forced ads at gas pumps is everyone else?
I'm paying 4 bucks a gallon to have you shove advertising down my throat like an erect cock?
What the actual fuck
Anyone have any good ad blocking practices for this?
I've seen duct or painters tape covering the speakers...
You can press a button next to the screen to mute it, but this doesn't work at all gas stations. (Usually its the 2nd from the top on the right side)
I guess its just time to gettoblast music every time I pump gas like back when I was 19....
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One time I put in my card, but the pump couldn't show me an ad because it crashed. My card was stuck in the pump. The guys inside tried resetting the pump but that didn't work, so they said it'd be a week before someone came around to fix it. I had to cancel the card and get a new number. All because I couldn't watch the ads.
I hope you paid them for the lost ad revenue you caused them to suffer.
I hope you filed a complaint with the state agency that regulates gas pumps.
Sir, this is Texas. Glorified "gas pumps" run the state, and outlawed all regulation. After my complaint, my family was abducted like migrants and bussed to Chicago. So.. thank you.
Could be worse; Texas has been known to deport brown US citizens to Mexico.
I’ve never seen a pump that took a card inside it like an ATM; did you mean the transaction was stuck or the physical card?
I've seen a lot of those. The card gets physically stuck until the machine decides that the payment is completed.
I’ve been to many a pump that instructs you to insert and leave your card, then ‘latches’ onto the card once you’ve inserted it, locking it into place until the authorization for the transaction is complete. I’ve seen them in Florida, Georgia, Oklahoma, Texas, and Louisiana.
Pliers woulda worked (from experience). I always keep a pair handy for this and other more practical reasons.
The one thing that would push people to electric. At least then you can charge at home and avoid gas stations.
Don't worry; they'll just start playing ads in the car itself before you are able to shift gears to drive.
Discounted electric rates on your ad-supported charging plug…
Fucking hell
Or foregoing driving in favor of walking, biking, or public transit, which works even better.
Good one, except available only where developed well
Yep, that's why zoning reform is literally the most important issue in North America, being at the root of basically every other issue. (The climate crisis, the housing crisis, the obesity crisis, and just about every other problem including things like economic inequality and racism are either ultimately caused by or facilitated by exclusionary, low-density zoning).
I am pretty sure this already happened to me. Had to wait before prompted to enter payment. :(
Costco has no ads for the time being, and I can’t see it going with ads because they can only slow the sale of gasoline that people already line up for after paying to access the ability to buy it.
And then once enough people buy the premium membership they'll start putting ads on those, too.
Stahp
Shhhh! Don't give them fucking ideas!
This is one of those American absurdities that thankfully hasn't made its way over to Europe yet, at least to my knowledge. I hope I have an electric car by the point they start introducing these here.
In Finland our equivalence to Wal-Mart also sells cheap gas and they have ads on their pumps advertising their own products but it's just on the display and there's no sound with it.
That is how it started here. Then they got loud.
And now when I get gas I gotta listen to them hawk some shitty podcast from a washed up morning host. No! I don't want to know about Hoda Kotb, I just want gas!
Would be nice if the gas was less expensive at the stores with ads. At least that's not the case in my area. 5 min down the road the same company has pumps without ads for the same price.
You'd think it should be less expensive.
But then you're not thinking of increasing shareholder value.
How dare you!
Oh yes they tried. The damn thing scared me when that ad started playing. I haven't been back at that station again. Some other stations do have ads playing but those are silent, so I guess they do learn customers don't like the loud ads.
Huh, I guess living in a small town with gas stations that have had the exact same pumps for many decades has its perks.
Yeah, I've only seen these near big cities and major highways.
They're all over West Virginia which is pretty much nothing but small towns.
Find the old gas station
We've got some in the UK, like this one at the Shell petrol station at S60 5ND (pic from Oogle Gearth)
Is that a scale so you can weigh your gas?
“Place your GASOLINE in the tank”
Took me a minute but when I heard it I can’t unhear it.
A shell in Australia is the only place i've seen this as well. They will not be getting our custom.
get an e-bike :)
I've been driving an EV for a few years, but I flew out of state and had to rent a car recently. I'd never experienced this before then. It was one of the most dystopian experiences ever, leaving me feeling dirty and used.
I don't think I could keep myself from vandalizing those things if I had to do that constantly.
Why do you think charging stations will be immune? Plus with all the ‘smart’ ‘connected’ cars it’s not impossible for them to push ads directly to your car.
What sucks about charging stations is they don’t have:
EV charging doesn’t require you to stand around for 5 minutes holding a handle to fuel up. The charging times are longer, but once plugged in your need to stay anywhere near the vehicle is zero. And plugging in usually takes less than 5s.
So even if someone came up with a system whereby they expected you to watch an ad before the power would flow, you could always just plug in and walk away. How are they going to know you’re physically there?
As an EV driver I haven’t been to a gas station since I started driving it, but AFAIK this advertising hasn’t come to Canada — and hopefully it never does.
How about a button located near the ad screen and speaker that you have to hold like at least 80% of ad duration. If you failed to reach 80% it would reset to 0 and show you another ad so you can try again.
First — stop giving them ideas! 🤣
Second, a small rock and some tape would likely defeat that.
The idea I had was just so ridiculously evil I just had to teil about it 😄
If you think about it the rock and tape hack can be easily prevented, but I'm not going to elaborate any further as to not give them more ideas.
You’re hired!
There are some of these pumps in France. It infuriates me. The sound is horrible.
Don't buy gas from places that do this. Hasn't failed me yet and if more people did it maybe they'll stop.
They'd just blame millennials for ruining buying gas and double down on the ads.
More that I don't know of a single gas station without ads
Yup. The "free" market says that if everyone does the same shit, you have no choice, and they still make more money.
If a company’s being smart, deviating from the universal enshittification will earn them market share.
They will get the market share of us few weirdos who haven't just accepted this shit. They will lose out on advertising revenue, have to charge more for gas, and will go out of business.
And that ad revenue is probably significant. While consumers of commodities don't really have much selection.
As you are able I'd highly recommend going electric. Then you don't even have to go to gas stations. If you're able to charge at home (which I'm aware many are not) it's even better because anytime you leave the house you can have a full tank.
I have an electric car and the result is a loss of 20% of my income in the form of time spent twiddling my thumbs while the thinks slowly accumulates charge.
What job do you do where you can only charge it during work hours, yet the 30 minutes it takes to charge account for 20% of that work time?
A made up job!
"People are taking the piss out of you everyday. They butt into your life, take a cheap shot at you and then disappear. They leer at you from tall buildings and make you feel small. They make flippant comments from buses that imply you’re not sexy enough and that all the fun is happening somewhere else. They are on TV making your girlfriend feel inadequate. They have access to the most sophisticated technology the world has ever seen and they bully you with it. They are The Advertisers and they are laughing at you.
You, however, are forbidden to touch them. Trademarks, intellectual property rights and copyright law mean advertisers can say what they like wherever they like with total impunity.
Fuck that. Any advert in a public space that gives you no choice whether you see it or not is yours. It’s yours to take, re-arrange and re-use. You can do whatever you like with it. Asking for permission is like asking to keep a rock someone just threw at your head.
You owe the companies nothing. Less than nothing, you especially don’t owe them any courtesy. They owe you. They have re-arranged the world to put themselves in front of you. They never asked for your permission, don’t even start asking for theirs."
– Banksy
The ones here, you can't mute. Pisses me off so bad I will refuse to back to a gas station. I have even pulled up seen the ads on another pump and drove off. I'm not a fucking captive! Congrats on losing money greedy fucks!
Push and hold the left and right top buttons to put it in maintenance mode. You can do everything normally, but no sound.
Does this work universally or is there a particular station you frequent that it works at?
Depends on the model of pump. Some of them you push one of the unlabeled buttons a few times (my local Shell it’s the 2nd one down on the right)
Are there any potential repercussions for sticking a utility knife into the speaker grill?
Mild electric shock and a vandalism charge if caught. Worth it? I don't know but I'm getting sick of the fucking ads
Edit: So stab then pump, instead of the other way around to avoid boom boom?
Most gas stations are monitored with cameras (often times with facial recognition), so they will be able to see your face and license plate, then charge you with vandalism.
In another thread someone said they carry a sharpie marker with them and label the button(s) you need to press to mute the audio for future people.
I also always have a sharpie on me and often use it to fix the missing labels on these pumps.
I avoid gas stations that have ads. There's a chain where I live that doesn't do them, so they get all my business.
I do this too. Speedway and Shell play video ads on their pumps with no obvious mute options. I don't buy gas there.
You shouldn't be buying from Shell anyway given their history of human rights violations around the world. And in the more recent decades, their fight against eco-friendliness.
Of course all oil companies are shit, but for now it's a necessary evil, and some are worse than others.
I wish I could do this. There are none left in my area and I’m not drilling and refining my own gas.
That's always the problem with the "vote with your dollars" refrain: there's a race to the bottom where soon enough all the options start doing the shitty behavior.
The only solution that actually works is consumer protection regulation.
good time to switch to organic, gluten-free, vegan, open source, self-hosted and family-grown biomass fuel
Its always the one gas station that is a little run down and is the common place for violent crime
I wish advertisers would realize that forcing me to watch their ad against my will makes me actively hostile against their brand and/or product. If I remember their brand name from an intrusive ad I will not only not buy their products, I will go out of my way to give my money to their competitors.
Advertising is among the most studied psychological phenomenoms in the world. It's not so much about getting you to buy their product but more about you remembering the brand. Ads work. That why they're everywhere.
Sure I can name several brands that I'm not buying from either because of their ads.. ..but I remember the brands.
Whenever someone brings this up, someone also brings up the fact that ads are proven to work in general not on everyone. So I guess it's my turn today.
Yes, but in the context of whether or not to be scumbags about the gas pump they only care about the aggregate behavior. "I wish they would realize I make a mental note to never buy," they do, tho. They don't care because it convinces two or more other people to buy. Ads will continue getting worse because none of us will do collective action about it.
I likely wouldn't buy a diamond ring but I most certainly not buy one from a certain diamond store that has fucking annoying ads. They know who they are and if you are in Lower Mainland of BC, you know who I'm talking about. They can blow and choke on a red hot cock shaped metal rod. I'm glad I moved so far north that I won't get any ads for them ever again.
Diamonds are scammed by Debeers anyway
I've also cone to realize that this is the real purpose of ads.
[email protected], you have the right idea, but the other key thing you should remember is to never talk about the corps to anyone, even if you're dragging their name through the mud. "No such thing as bad press," as they say.
It's good to denounce the practice, but it seems naming and shaming specific companies just doesn't work anymore at this stage.
Second button down on the right side of the screen, press it (up to) 4 times and it mutes that shit
Since we are sharing...
Holding down 1-5-9 or 3-5-7 can drop a POS card reader into debug mode, but it's brand dependent. (I have had it also crash the host terminals in some cases as well.)
It's not destructive, nor can it really be considered illegal access. I suppose there is something illegal about it if it's classified as a DoS, I guess. There isn't much on a payment PED aside from an encryption key and maybe some network information.
Entering your PIN and accidentally hitting 3 buttons hardly seems like something to get charged with. How you leverage that for other things could easily be a problem.
All I am saying is that the likelihood of serious repercussion is very low. Still, I have to agree: Only do it with permission and with purpose.
Because why just hack it as much as you need to when you can go all the way? AMIRITE?
It serves a niché function in some situations. (Physical pen testing, in my case. I needed the person at the register gone in one case so I could setup a small network tap.)
was it really pen testing or just pen..ing😏
The only difference is who pays you to do it 😁
Ohhh maybe it's the multiple presses that are needed
I was just pressing every button once without success.
stopped working for me like 2 years ago
I’ve read that, but it’s never worked for me
Most of them the second button down on the right is mute, though I've been running into some recently that disabled the mute.
Anyway, I sharpie a "mute" next to the button on stations where it isn't labeled for other people. It's one bit of graffiti that I'm not at all conflicted about.
This never works for me at any brand gas station. I try it every time.
I've had the exact opposite experience. Only once has the second button down from the right not worked. But in that instance it was the bottom right button.
The version of Neuralink we can afford will be ad supported.
Only at first.
Then every version will be ad-supported.
I'll just wait until Neuralink gets ReVanced.
The brain implant will be more like "adplus" of it ever catches on. I guarantee it.
I have a feeling that Surgeons will be made to sign contracts instructing them to refuse BYOC (bring/build your own chip) implants.
Otherwise, just make your own chip. You decide the materials, you decide the process. You decide each and every part (alright, maybe just as much as you can fathom) of the circuit.
You decide how powerful the feedback is and what functions it provides. So you are not paying for the risk of features other than the ones you want.
I feel like there's very few people who could design and build their own brain implant chip. Even in the far future
I feel like if (the de-techification of general public doesn't take place in the future) && (I were to be born in the future); then
I would probably giving free chip-design customisation services to friends and family, using some open source chip design as a base.
But then again, there's already a very few number of ppl like me...
It's just not something you can do in your garage these days (or for the past few decades), even if the designs were open sourced. I like your idea and wish there was less concentrated power in chip manufacturing, I just don't think it's very feasible.
Well, designing and manufacturing are 2 different things.
You're right as in we will still have to rely on some Workshop having a million dollar fabrication setup with at least half a dozen experts working, to do the manufacturing part.
Furthermore, said setup will have to be optimised not for scale (as in workshop mode and not assembly line mode), focusing on getting one-shot success rather than mass-manufacturing and getting yield %ages. So, we won't really benefit from things like Intel opening up their fabs, since they still expect a bulk order.
We still always have FPGAs.
Just need one with an open source VHDL compiler.
Surgeons already aren't allowed to put non FDA approved things in you. You would go to a tattoo/piercing shop for that sort of thing.
Ooh, that would be hard.
Now you would have to make sure that the tattoo guy has enough time and drive to put the effort into understanding your custom chip design and know which probe to connect to which neuron.
I mean... It's Las Vegas. You don't go to Vegas expecting a vacation experience free from the perverse corruption of money.
Wow, in Europe we haven't reached that gas station modernization stage yet.
Hopefully Europe goes the other way and gets rid of cars before petrol stations modernize. Fuck cars.
::: spoiler Anti Commercial AI thingy CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 :::
I think that's the political will that's lacking. I've been to remote towns with good public transport. Switzerland even famously has one place where no private cars are allowed and nobody wants them. As the Germans say "Wo ein Wille ist, ist ein Weg".
::: spoiler Anti Commercial AI thingy CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 :::
I avoid those stations i know have ads, and if surprised... i'm happy to know of the hidden mute button.
Me too. I let my $$ speak for me.
Your money is the squeak of a mouse against the thunderclap of advertising money.
If they lose a couple weirdos like us but get to sell eyeballs, they'll do it.
If necessary it'll be active resistance from me.
Sadly, it doesn't always seem to exist.
In that case I reward the one that did the thing last.
For instance, when Safeway removed my ability to mute the self checkout instructions, I stopped shopping there and only went to King Soopers.
KS decided to also remove the mute option, but I’m still loyal to them because fuck Safeway for moving first on that.
Voting with your money sounds about as effective at influencing things as actual voting.
I'm just going to leave this here.
I was really hoping this was for fuel pumps, but the bus stop ads are great, too.
A gentleman and a scholar
One of my most upvoted comments on here is saying I should be legally allowed to smash those screens if they play ads.
I don't need advertisements shoved in my face every second of every day.
Late-stage capitalism means this bullshit will keep creeping into every facet of life. I hate it.
just the US speedrunning a dystopic world
Maybe we need a need OSM tag
OpenStreetMap?
Yes
I’d really love to help out providing that kind of info. I’m an Uber driver so I’m out on the road all day.
What’s an app I can keep on my phone to add OSM tags. Are those tags stored in a single resource shared by everyone, like a blockchain or something? Or are there separate competing sets of OSM tags?
Street complete is the app normally used for mapping. However there isn't a place to enter this information
Cool. I like the idea!
Though I don't drive, I adore the general usefulness of the OSM project, and would find that sort of stuff very useful if I had an ICE car.
Unlike Google Maps, OSM is just as useful if you don't drive. I love it for walking and cycling, it's got all the little paths, categorized correctly.
This
We need to start a movement to show people different ways to vandalize them without being caught, and print stickers to stick on them to show the reasoning behind the vandalosm
Finally a good use of the "I did that" Biden stickers.
lol!
Even better:
Start a movement to build robust cycling infrastructure.
They'll start putting ads in the bike lanes
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!
Just you wait. You'll see "This bike lane brought to you by Chevrolet" in under a decade.
"Asphalt by BP-Oil!"
A few more people would probably use bikes, but I don't see how this solves the issue, no matter how good the cycling infrastructure we won't see cars and gas stations just disappear. I suspect I don't see the goals as you intend them, but I don't see people dropping there kids off at school on bikes or biking to and from a restaurant to eat a steak dinner, not to mention city services and transportation. If your target is really emissions I'd suspect that electric cars and limiting private jets would make more progress.
There is some artist who uses this kind of “road sticker” that is damn near impossible to remove. All that artist does is put a little sticker down of a stylized humanoid form, but that sticker on a fuel pump would probably withstand weather and attempts to remove it.
Any more info would be appreciated
Come live in NJ. No ads!
Get an EV and you’ll never have to go to a gas station again. None of the chargers I’ve seen have ads on them.
Still early in the enshittification cycle. It'll happen eventually.
All of the chargers I've seen have ads on them.
Maybe public ones but the good thing about electric is you plug in and either walk away or sit in your car you don't need to be outside near the pump to charge.
Watch them start making chargers that hook up to your infotainment system and run ads all the way through your charging session.
Edit: period.
That's an interesting way to spin the fact that it takes so long to charge that it's impractical to stand there and wait for it to finish.
If you turned the gas pump down to make it pump slowly enough, you could walk away from it while you wait, too.
No you can't walk away from a gas pump, if it ignites you need to know.
Electric is still better than gas, it has more acceleration and torque. I can out accelerate many gas cars in my minivan.
You have an electric minivan? Since when were those a thing?
Pacifica plug in hybrid, only has 40 mile range but in the city it's all I use. So I use almost no gas unless it's super cold. I also only buy gas every 3 months and at Costco so no audio ads on the pumps.
Aw, you got my hopes up for a minute there.
I've got a minivan with a hateful automatic transmission that I only reluctantly accepted because it was a hand-me-down from my parents, and I've often thought that the only excuse worth a damn for not having a proper stick shift would be if the car were electric (and therefore had no transmission at all).
'Course, any new vehicle would be a privacy nightmare, so realistically if I finally get fed up enough with this thing then I'm more likely to either manual-swap it or replace it with something like a Mazda5 or Previa. Sucks that manufacturers have poison-pilled every single EV, but whatcha gonna do?
I don't even have an EV and I have to see the ads on the chargers because they're in front of the store I'm walking into. So far, I've only noticed that at grocery stores, but it's annoying.
They target the most common denominator. Once EVs are everywhere, look at the chargers getting filled with ads.
Maybe, but I don't think it's worth it. With a gas car, you stand idle at the pump for a few minutes making sure that nothing bursts into flames or gas doesn't overflow. Charging an EV isn't like that. They've got about 5 seconds of your time at the most.
Fast charging is constantly improving though, I wouldn't be surprised if we reach a point where EV charging improves to a point where it takes roughly the same time as charging an ICE vehicle in the 2030s.
https://driving.ca/auto-news/technology-news/toyota-says-ev-batteries-will-charge-to-near-full-in-10-minutes-by-2027
Well, Toyota's claims about batteries are intended to convince people not to buy EVs yet. They're going to be SO much better real soon now so just buy another Toyota gas car and think about EVs next time.
It's just another flavour of the anti-EV FUD Toyota has been spewing for a decade now. They're also saying that hydrogen is the future and that gas will always be 70%+ of the car market, so you have your choice of anti-EV FUD. Consistency doesn't matter when you're running a disinformation campaign.
Lol that would be the ultimate first world problem. Charging so fast it makes more sense to stand at the plug than go into the store to pee.
Not great for privacy or freedom though
I have never seen any ads in gas pump over here. But at the equivalent of 8$ per gallon, there is no need.
This drives me nuts too. Who the hell decided to do this? I avoid the stations with ads.
If the mute button doesn't work I just go to other stations next time. Some of the gas stations around here have gotten rid of the ads.
The ones I frequent have silenced the ads or gotten rid of them altogether.
Seems like they are still loud and shitty in more rural areas where there is less choice that I've been to in the last couple of years.
I'm assuming least some of the ad revenue would go to the station owner. But I bet it often turns out to be less money than they had expected.
I've never seen an as at a gas station, sounds like America is fucked
I'm so used to it at this point thag the thought of it not being there is weird. To give you the hellish picture, gas pumps in the US have like 10in screens on them. They are usually off, but as soon as you make a payment or start pumping gas, they kick on and start playing loud obnoxious advertisements. My brain is so used to this shit that it's just background noise now. I'm sure there's got to be some kind of psychological side effects of being barraged with ads all the time. I'm sure studies have found that it leads to more consumerism, and in that case, it's working.
Send help.
Bro, what is going on in the USA 😅 You guys better hope Neuralink fails otherwise there'll be ads right in your craniums.
::: spoiler Anti Commercial AI thingy CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 :::
I would probably bring a really thick permanent marker with me and some chewing gum for the speakers. I'm lucky enough to live in an area that has pretty good cycling infrastructure so I don't have to deal with that shit. I'm sorry you do though.
For the pumps that the mute button doesn't work: carry a small screwdriver, 1/8", flat blade, insert into center of speaker then pull sideways to severe the coil wire.
Great idea, it’s not like every single gas station is riddled with cameras and you have a license plate they can track you with or anything….
Tired of ads at the gas station? Carry a lighter
Can’t have a problem if the problem is atomized. You being right along with it may be a problem….
They too will get the screwdriver treatment!
It doesn't effect the operation of the pump and takes a three second poke and twist. With no legitimate use of the speaker it would be months before it is noticed. Think they would scrub through tens of thousands of interactions with the pump and find that one person who leaned in a bit? Doubtful, and if so, minor vandalism charge and a small fine for months of quiet peace. Worth it in my book.
Some electronics have a way to test the system if the speaker is functional and can potentially kill the system, so that’s not even remotely true. Also, maybe they have to manually check the pump every morning when they turn the pumps on as part of their start up process.
You are a fool if you think stuff isn’t able to verify and test itself in todays age or they don’t have an employee checking stuff semi frequently…
In either case it wouldn’t be hard to go through a days footage, even easier if the system self tests and tells you when/if the problem occurred.
Or just go to a different gas station instead of vandalizing property that's not yours.
That speaker is also used for communication with the cashier, for example a disabled person requesting assistance. Or in my personal experience, the pump not working right and them telling me to put the handle back and start over.
Why do companies even buy ads in this space? There's so many spots in our society where ads are just being injected to play for nobody. At what point do they figure out that it's not worth the return on investment to put ads in those spots?
It is pennies for them
They don’t have to work, you just have to convince people they do.
The majority of pumps in my area play ads. Some of the pumps can't be muted. For those, press the top left and right buttons, then next two down, then the next two and it throws it into maintenance mode. That shuts off the speaker.
Is this a thing in Canada yet? Thankfully have never seen it here.
I haven't encountered it. Maybe we're lucky and some law prevents it? I find it hard to believe they wouldn't exploit us further if there wasn't something stopping them.
Shell's had them for a while out in Alberta.
I want to brainstorm this. I know about the mute button, but it doesn't work on all pumps. So, how are the pumps getting the ads (getting updated ads)? Are they connected to the internet? Bluetooth? Flash Drive firmware updates?
When we figure this out, the next step is to hack that source.
I never saw these before I visited the US. While tanking somewhere in eastern Texas, on my way from Houston to a tiny town south of New Orleans.
My "fix" was waiting in the car with bluetooth buds in, while the pump did its thing. Holy hell those were annoying.
I have never experienced this. Where do you have ads at gas stations?
The United States of America.
Most of them anyway.
United Corporations of America
When they have an LCD screen. I go to the one sketchy one down the road because the pumps are older
Thankfully only one near me does this and I've never gone back once I saw they had these installed. This is really the only way we're ever going to see these practices phased out. Corporations don't take anything seriously until it affects the bottom line. Just look at climate change.
I think getting this practice phased out would require a sustained social media campaign. Otherwise the MBAs just see mysterious fluctuations on their charts, and they'll make up some vaguely-political theories about Millenials.
Covertly stab out the speakers.
They never asked for your consent to pollute your mind with invasive thoughts, jingles, etc. Don’t ask for theirs.
I don't think I have ever been to a gas station with ads obnoxious enough to notice. If I start noticing them (ie extremely loud) I stop getting my gas there.
I sit in my car.
You aren’t supposed to do that, assuming you’re the one pumping gas. Gas stations are a bad place to generate static electricity, lol.
I forgot about the epidemic of gas station explosions due to people sitting in their cars.
I mean, it does happen.
If it is of concern for you, you're going to lose your shit when you find out the risks involved when you actually drive your car.
I mitigate risks when it’s reasonable. Not getting in my car while pumping gas is an easy step to take in order to mitigate a risk. Like buckling my seatbelt.
Can you perhaps share some statistics of explosions caused by getting in a car? No? How about an article of someone blown to smithereens by getting in there car? Not that either?
What you're feeling better about is the theater of inferred safe practices. The fact that in spite of driving being the top cause of accidental death, you're ok with but although there is no factual info backing up your fear of getting into your car should give you pause.
Wait do you deny these even happen? Are you serious right now? There’s multiple videos and articles. Like this one:
https://youtu.be/T6VKxmUPb3g?si=R0-ovPwC4TRlXgBh
They put stickers on every pump everywhere warning about static electricity causing fires. Do you think they just put those on there for fun? I bet you're not vaccinated either, idiot.
There was a whole Mythbusters episode where they tried TONS of stuff to get a gas station to go up in flames (they couldn't, not even smoking a cigarette -- under near ideal conditions for an ignition of nearby vapors -- per my recollection).
So yeah, I'm sitting in my car (especially if it's cold outside).
"Static electricity" isn't somehow more of a concern sitting in your car than standing outside one in a fuzzy jacket.
What about gasoline fights? Did they account for those?
Cool, here's a video of a known static electricity ignition.
https://youtu.be/T6VKxmUPb3g?si=qmnptZLv2S1RgJvf
Hey look... a fuzzy sweater.
I'm still getting in and out of my car. I get in, shut the door, get back out, and close the door. Plenty of metal touched. Sometimes gloves.
Here's another one https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=JMfxPooeybg
Probably 1 in 10 million (and 2/2 videos where they didn't shut the car door)... I'll take that chance.
Edit: also think about it, if this was a real problem with a high enough frequency they'd engineer the fuel handles to prevent it. Heck, maybe they already did (accidentally or intentionally) plenty of them increasingly have a ton of plastic.
Dude your name is literally Dark_Arc. Just accept that your destiny is dying in a static electricity fire
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
https://m.piped.video/watch?v=JMfxPooeybg
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I'm open-source; check me out at GitHub.
They do engineer the pumps to ground the static charge. That's what can cause the arc.
You discharge yourself the first time you touch the pump before you fill up.
Getting back into the car defeats the purpose by then grounding you in the presence of fuel vapors, rather than before.
What you're saying doesn't make any sense. If you're engineering something to prevent a spark from a static charge, you engineer it to prevent a spark from a static charge. You don't engineer it to "ground you at first and then fail" if you pick up a static charge for some reason.
EDIT: And there are a lot more ways to become statically charged than getting in and out of a car (which in a lot of cases isn't going to give you a static charge anyways -- e.g. leather seats on cotton clothes is extremely unlikely to generate a static charge).
Yes, which is why the recommendation is to keep your hand on the handle while pumping or touch a metal part of your car prior to returning to the pump, and don't get back into a car.
I have a real life degree in automotive technology and engineering, and you saw a Mythbusters episode.
We can keep doing this forever if you like, but you're still very poorly informed on how safety is engineered into your vehicle fuel system and the mechanisms that support it.
Here is some reading to help you, API recommended fuel procedures (if you're not familiar with the API just read any gas pump or bottle of oil until you are): https://www.api.org/oil-and-natural-gas/consumer-information/consumer-resources/staying-safe-pump
They need some signs, ‘No pumping gas in fuzzy jackets’
The concern (especially when it's cold since that usually implies dry air) is that a buildup of static energy occurs when your body rubs up against your cars interior.
This concern is usually a bit bigger for younger folks because they tend to not touch any metal parts of their car when getting up, which would discharge the energy while still a decent distance from the nozzle that's leaking gas vapors.
I used to do that until the pump failed to realize the tank was full and just kept going.
That's also why there are signs telling you specifically not to do that.
We should make a law that any process which requires continuous attention for safety reasons cannot be a venue for advertisement.
I just watch the filler from the side mirror. When I feel the click of the disengagement, I hop out, give a ground pat to the pump and replace the nozzle.
That's my point. When it fails, there's no click. It just keeps going. Then you're scrambling to stop the pump as it's jizzing fuel all over your car's paint job, the floor, you...
Jokes on them, I start the pump and walk inside to get a drink/snack. By the time I get back I'm done pumping.
thats what they want you to do...
i love paying $5 for a small bag of combos that isnt as big as it used to be
you can get fuel delivered to your house, install a few tanks, or straight to your vehicle
Every station I have gone to with them has had the mute button labeled or at least functional. If they didn't, I would never return.
The only time they are useful is when they offer a coupon for something I was already going to buy, but that happens so infrequently I'd rather have my attention back.
The ones near me don't, but it's still there. Just push buttons till it's quiet. For mine, it's the fourth button.
Come live in NJ. No ads!
Not only are they stupidly repetitive, they are loud. They do make me look for other stations. I've found I can mess with them sometimes using the home button, it can pause the marketing BS for a good minute.
Strange things are in the US. The only good adblocker which ocurres me for this
Never knew this was a thing, that better not come over here.
id take the ads over the 20 questions it asks you before you can even select the fuel grade. and the button barely works so i have to press it 20 times
Just tried the "2nd button from the top" on both right and left at Wesco (Michigan) - didn't work.
Opt out entirely. Get an electric car. Your gas pump is your garage and you start every day with a full tank.
This has been a thing in the States for about 15 years, it's not new. If it's just now becoming a thing where you live, understand that things like Gas TV, or ads for products or fuel additives were around since the late 2000s and early 2010s
Damn, paying 4$ for a gallon, here in Europe the gallon is more than 7$.
You just have to start invading countries for their oil.
If you hurry you might be able to get part of Russia before the Ukrainian’s blow up all the refineries
I mean you could try, but you have to attack from across an ocean
You mean your government isn't shoveling money into the already wealthy oil companies' coffers? What are they even investing in, then, human rights? Silly.
Sinclair (green Dino brand) has terribly loud ads on their pumps. I was furious and couldn’t help but yell at the manager (not the young guy behind the counter). Manager said everyone is doing it and suck it up or fuck off. So I told him what a piece of shit he is and I refuse to use Sinclair anymore. No business from me. Also my next vehicle won’t be gas. Death to oil companies, they’re cancer on this planet
So you went and made the manager's shit day at his shitty underpaid job worse? He doesn't own the place. He didn't choose to put the ads in. You're the piece of shit in that interaction.
Otherwise agreed.
Use a screwdriver. Those speakers are driven from somewhere. There's some way to do maintenance.
Headphones. Ez.
Time to get an EV you can charge at home 😎
Think of this fact the next time people list off all the “downsides” of owning an EV… like never going to the gas station.
Hmmm. I don't pump my own gas here in Oregon so I totally forgot this was a thing.
Didn't they finally end that mandate recently, or am I thinking of New Jersey?
They did. Very few use the self service though.
Unless they've got regulations prohibiting gas stations from charging less for self-service than for full-service, I expect that'll change over time.
On the pumps in my area the mute button is usually the second one from the bottom and it may be on either side. I don't care to watch them while I wait for my 40 gallon tank to fill but if I'm just topping off, I don't bother to mute, I wont be there long. I also grew up before skippable ads and watched Over-The-Air TV where you couldn't skip them. That's why there is still a format where an hour long show is actually 44-46 minute and a 30 minute show is around 22 minute runtimes on streaming services. Those commercial breaks were a speed contest to see if you could grab a snack, use the bathroom, or get a cup of coffee before the show came back on.
Lol, why are people downvoting this? You guys like ads?
Super glue in the speaker holes seems like a good solution
Left hand side second button down -> mute. Might not work everywhere, but it's pretty satisfying to turn it off.
There are enough options most places to vote with your wallet. It is ultimately meaningless to the machine, but at least you'll be somewhere with no ads or mutable ads.
This has to be a joke right? Please tell me you are joking. Please. I need to you to say sike right now.ä
Vandalism, basically.
Costco pumps dont have ads. Only fuel there. Set the other gas starion on fire
I just start pumping then go clean out my car. Sometimes I catch a little of the front or end of the ad. It doesn't really bother me as I'm not paying attention and I still have my car music on
Let's just pick a day and all smash them at the same time. Sends a very clear message
I actually don't care here lol. It scares me when it makes noise but I just play with my phone anyways.
I wouldn't condone vandalism or anything like that here.
It's a good time to clean your windshield, check your oil/coolant levels, tire pressure and throw any trash away.. do you really stare at the pump like a n00bz?!
What's a gas pump?
If you're in Europe, perhaps you know it as a petrol ejaculator.
The thing you get gas from
Fuck going to gas pumps, that shits for boomers
Ok I guess. I'm not sure where else you would get gas
why would you get gas? electric vehicles are so much more comfortable
Uhh not everyone can just drop 40 grand on an electric car.
hah yeah that's about the response i expected.
Nowhere did say car, i'm talking about electric mopeds, e-bikes, and e-scooters. There are countries other than the US.
Because they are not practical? Not to mention they are a privacy and freedom nightmare
Sorry to be the one but the privacy and freedom issue is independent of powertrain. Some earlier models before the automakers went upmarket with EVs were perfectly normal. Now the tablet-on-dash, telematics and other data collection has become pervasive in EVs but now it’s in full-force on ICE vehicles for quite some time. A Mach E and Colorado can both be, and have been, bricked by a bad OTA update.
Practicality though also will vary. If people were used to charging at home all the time, telling people that they have to visit a business to refuel every X days or Y miles would seem odd just because it’s quite different than people think is normal.
Big city problems. This is why I love living in the sticks
I don't live in a big city, by any stretch - but I guess it's not the sticks, because we have that shit around here. And not just the busiest gas stations, by the highway. I hate it.
I'm not sure when you live but I've only ever seen that crap in big cities
That's fair - I had just thought it must be the new normal, if it had trickled down to our city (city, but not big city).
The whole business of blaring ads at a captive audience is bs, either way!
One of the gas stations by my house does something similar but actually cool. They show about 2 minutes of sports highlights from the night before (think SportsCenter Top 10 but also with scores) and then some non-political news headlines.
I actually stand there watching the whole time. They get my business.
Glad that you enjoyed the content, but that would be hell for me; Idgaf about sports. If I am so unlucky to end up at a station with these, I try to mute asap.
That's a fair criticism. I guess I was just thinking it's better than ads, but not if you don't enjoy sports.
Eh I like it, it gives me something to do while pumping...
Honestly I miss when they did news headlines instead of ads, ya hear me Cheddar News, I miss you
Try keeping thick earmuffs in your car, within quick reach in case the ads start playing.
Imagine paying 4$ a gallon lool Edit: why am i getting downvoted? 4$ is extremely cheap here i europe. A gallon is 4 liters right?
Yea it’s 3.78 L.
US produces the most in the world btw and no European county in top 10 are one reason for price difference
Haha ya, what a sucker! This is why I make my own gas at home.
/s
I've heard switching to EV totally removes the gas pump ads.
Start harassing them any way you can that is not illegal. How long can you 'park' at a gas station pump ? What happens if you accidentally spill gas all over the screen/speaker/system ? Accidents happen and it was their fault for not making a foolproof system..