Why is it illegal to pump your own gas in New Jersey?

It has been sold as a "public safety" measure... the justification being that gasoline is a hazardous substance and should only be dispensed by "qualified" individuals... 

More recently, it has been called a "security" measure...preventing use of counterfeit cards and potential assaults of drivers late at night....

In reality, it's mostly about preserving jobs in a state that has only a small fraction of the blue collar jobs that once were the basis of its economy... Jersey is known for its major highways....and filling stations run along all of them accounting for thousands of jobs...almost all of which would go away with automated self serve pumps.

California is seeing this right now in another area: Car Washes.  With mandated minimum wage increases the majority of car washes are greatly reducing the number of "wipe down boys" or going fully automated... My local wash used to employ hundreds of teens every summer... now they employ a total of 6...

It's illegal to do that in Oregon too. It could be an insurance thing.

Hey, JayDee, it's Jersey, what can I say.

Same in Oregon. Probably nobody brought it up in the legislature. It probably would be a little easier for the gas station owners, since they wouldn't have to hire so many people (so no benefits and so on). I don't think it would matter much in terms of profits: if they had "pump your own" everybody would reduce their prices (price-war style), since the competitors would get rid of their attendants as well. In the end, it would lose several-thousand jobs, and no politician wants to be blamed for that.

Oregon has the same law.  It's fun to pull up to a gas pump with my California license plates and pretend I'm going for the pump, and someone comes running out of the office shouting 'No!  Stop!'

I always thought it was an employment thing.  Every gas station has to hire someone to pump gas.  I'm sure it's a minimum wage job.

Also it's safer.  Well, a little.  Gas pumpers know not to fill up a gas can sitting in the bed of a pickup truck.  Or to get back in and out of the car while the gas is pumping.  People are much less likely to drive away with the nozzle still in their filler tube.  It'd be interesting to see statistics of gas station fires in Oregon compared to, say, Washington or Idaho.

That's still a law?  I remember when I used to travel there for work, and thought it was dumb then, 20 years ago.  Where is the progress?

To many thieves filling up their cars and driving off without paying.