The Rise of Dumb, Anti-Innovation, Job-Saving Laws in Blue Cities and States

By Jim Geraghty

Sunday, October 04, 2026

 

Our James Lileks laments the City of Minneapolis requirement that self-driving cars have a $31.50/hour nondriver sitting in the driver’s seat, even though they are not driving the car:

 

You expect that they will find new ways to protect jobs threatened by societal advances. Think of all the entry-level pump jockey jobs lost! When people were permitted to refuel their cars on their own! The city should require all gas stations to have someone stand by every pump, doing nothing. After a year at this position, they will be eligible to be promoted to stand by the electric car charging stations, doing nothing.

 

Oh, James! Let us turn our eyes to the Garden State of New Jersey, where pumping your own gas has been illegal since 1949. Raised in New Jersey (Exit 10), I never learned how to pump gas until well into adulthood. Then, while stopping there many years later, I got out and started pumping my own gas like a regular Billy the Kid outlaw until the attendant rushed out and made me stop. Heaven forbid I do something I’ve probably done hundreds of times in other states!

 

Why does New Jersey still require “pump jockeys”?

 

The exact role of a pump jockey is outlined in the New Jersey Retail Gasoline Dispensing Safety Act and Regulations, in which they describe a pump jockey as someone who pumps gasoline and prevents others from pumping gasoline. They are generally minimum wage jobs, earning 16 dollars an hour.

 

The ban is enforced with fees which are primarily intended for gas stations in violation. For pumping your own gas, the first offense ranges from 50 to 250 dollars. There is a 500 dollar fine for each subsequent offence. Attendants, themselves, will also act to prevent consumers from pumping themselves.

 

The primary motivation to keep the ban in place has been to protect jobs and provide a better service. There are estimated to be about 7000 gas station attendants employed in New Jersey. Lifting the ban would cause the loss of these low requirement jobs.

 

If a local or state government could ban assembly-line robots, automated telephone switchboards, automated teller machines, online shopping, self-operated elevators, and pinboys (the folks who used to reset pins at the bowling alley by hand), they would do so.

 

I was going to add banning self-checkout to the list of ridiculous ideas, but California, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New York, Ohio, and Washington have contemplated legislation that would require a balance between employee-operated and self-checkout stations, a certain number of employees per self-checkout station, and/or stricter limits on the number and types of items that customers can bring through self-checkout. (This is an anti-shoplifting effort.)

 

Rhode Island passed its law; starting January 1, 2027, any grocery store in the state that provides self-service checkout stations must have a ratio of one manual checkout station for every three self-service stations. Heaven forbid we let the grocery stores decide for themselves! Heaven forbid we allow customers to decide which option they want to use!