> “The dangers of crime and slick surfaces described in subsection (3) of this section are enhanced because Oregon’s weather is uniquely adverse, causing wet pavement and reduced visibility”

More here: https://medium.com/policy-northwest/the-insanity-of-oregons-...

Safety is important but wet pavements are also a hazard when you leave your house or literally do anything outside. Laws that try to masquerade for progressive causes for the sake of your “safety” are rampant in Oregon. There are so many of these insane laws piled up over the years. A friend of mine who was an licensed Architect in the state of Oregon recently moved to Phoenix. Reason? Unbelievable mess of laws and regulations that make it impossible to construct anything but a bog standard house.

One consequence is that our state gas tax hasn't been raised in decades. That's why our gas is cheaper than across the border in WA. They pay a much higher per gallon tax than we do. My town has gotten around this by adding a $10 a month fee for road improvements to our water bills. Other cities and towns let their roads crumble.

I'd estimate that only a small proportion of stations in NJ are attached to any convenience stores that sell things. On highways, yes. Off of highways around towns, they're often attached to a mechanic's garage, and the only things sold beside gas is windshield fluid and a spare quart of oil.

It's notable that NJ and Oregon both have cheap gas relative to many other parts of the country due to close proximity with oil refining &/or transportation infrastructure, which means lower costs to get it to the gas stations.

Although in NJ that discount is slowly going away as the state gradually ratchets up tax on gas purchases. Without that tax they would have by far the cheapest in the country by roughly 16% or $.50/gallon. Now NJ is only cheaper than most when there's a spike in oil prices stemming more from transportation costs, or at least that's what I've observed.

While driving home, I remember thinking that Gas Station Attendant was looking at me funny.

It wasen't until a few years later I heard about the law.

(There's a stretch of highway 101 around Shasta that is a Speed Trap. The cops pull over four vechicles at a time and give everyone tickets. They supposedly use a plane, but I never saw one. They got busted a few years ago, but I heard they are doing it again.)

It is the worst possible way to create a 'jobs program'.

Not quite right: It makes buying gas more expensive.

The state of Oregon could, instead, increase gas taxes by a few cents and devote that wealth to some other economic activity. The net result of the law is waste.

Hemp definitely needs regulation, but the OLCC notoriously over-regulates for the sake of control and income. I'm pretty confident that is OLCC got control, they'd end up putting a lot of folks out of business through excessive red tape

Heck when traveling through NJ and there was a single attendant at a busy station, I got out and pumped my own gas. No one cared.

It would be amusing if Oregon required an electrician to plug in an EV at a public charger.

Do not mind if it is a jobs program. People need the work. Rain sucks. Handling gas sucks.

I get to catch up on a text, queue a show up for driving and pretty much never mind a wait.

Frankly, I would love a Federal and State based program to get more basic labor done. Think of the WPA and CCC from New Deal era times.

So many people need skills, an out from or alternative to service work. Not a thing wrong with service work, but many will want or need to do better. There are simply not enough better jobs for that to happen.

Our parks, roads, towns, many things need work. So, let's get that work done. People can get some real skills out of that stuff. Great! I happen to have many of them growing up how and where I did. I think nothing of building, repairing, whatever. It is familiar and I was shown the good stuff by skilled people. Frankly, these skills can be worth 6 figures in a life. Fix it, help others, improve it, build it, etc...

And when we have all that work in progress, maybe we can then discuss whether pumping gas is a priority or not. Nice problem to have, if you ask me. How can we have it?

That is the kind of what is worth what discussion I would welcome and require to reconsider fuel attendants.

To clarify:

I am part of society and value my time. Having fuel pumped is a great deal. I benefit significantly. Others do as well. Apparently enough of us do.

Besides, basic labors really add up in our lives. They provide great value and the people who do them should earn enough to live a reasonable, dignified life same as anyone else.

I do not want to do basic labors, but will when required. There are more interesting uses of my time. Getting the use of that time is how we should value basic labors.

I value that highly.

A little slack in the system is a very good thing. Think people with troubled past getting a start to build on. That is necessary, or we pay much harder in other ways.

Pay them to attend junior college or something. The payoff is a million times higher.

A while back, my kid was on a baseball team coached by a guy who included pumping gas in the set of things he does to exist, show up for work and do things in this world.

Who are you to judge and put such shame on work that has respectable value? I will answer for you: nobody, same as me, that's who.

And "attend college" = not waste? I must be frank: implying people who do basic labors are somehow wasted, or in need of education is not a reputable assessment. Not to mention, "who pays?" Are we going to put free college out there? I sure hope so, and support that idea. In that scenario, one could pump gas, live small and get an education. More of that in our society please!

The place I get my gas from does my windows, we sometimes catch up on a bit of local news, exchange a joke, "you want that to go?" got that started, and yeah, I chuckled. And more.

"Human capital"

I reject that idea entirely. There is no waste in any of this.

Lives break down into thirds, one of which is work, one is sleep, and the remaining one, ideally funded reasonably by the work and a healthy society, is for people to just be people. Maybe that means hanging out with family, coaching a team, making art, fixing stuff, who knows, and more importantly, who cares?

"A life", "wasted", why? Because you do not feel good about how other people live their lives? Let them do that, you have your own to manage.

I sure do not need my entire life judged by the work I do, nor do I care to have that other third be anything other than what I feel makes the most sense for me, mine, others who I value.

In the scale of things? Yeah, it is a little slack. Easy work. And plenty of people value it. I sure do.

Frankly, in light of the massive abuse, killing, poisoning of "human capital" we do globally, along with our general apathy when it comes to taking care of our own people, I find this line of discussion laughable!

Seriously.

In simple, priority terms, as in something we really should get after?

This does not rate. At. All.

shouldn't you not be watching shows while driving? Or do you mean podcasts or something?

I may abuse the general term "show", and am happy to own that as well as can't be arsed to improve. To me, it is all just a show.

Anyway, here they are. All very different styles, but all very good:

John Lee

William Dufris

Stefan Rudnicki

Scott Brick

In fact, if you enjoy scifi/fantasy, The Psalms of Isaak by Ken Scholes has a full cast with all of the above except for John Lee. (John Less

That series is a very thoughtful set of books, not easily placed into a nice category of high/low fantasy & doesn't romanticize feudalism societies with royalty, lords, etc being the only notable characters. That always annoys me about some types of fantasy: Taking a style of government that is brutal & freedom crushing for 99.99% of the population & focus on the lucky few who where fancy clothes and go to feasts, with a token peasant as "the chosen one".

Bureaucracy isn't that different from code. Some of it's dead legacy that needs to be removed, some of it's legacy that needs to be improved/replaced, some of it's legacy that's good enough, some of it's there for a damn good reason no matter how ugly it looks.

And when it comes to code, you probably trust devs who have specific insights into issues with code and promising replacements.

Some quick googling turns up nothing more than the state Department of Aviation, which looks serve the same purpose as other states' departments of aviation. Namely, to maintain state-owned airfields and support some planning functions.

Not saying it's good nor bad.

I don’t think that is the case for a redundant board.

Security jobs, and working at a gas station, allowed me to do all my homework.

But it would be nice if jobs programs produced more benefit.

Actual benefit comes when people get paid by other people voluntarily making the exchange

And all I can think about are the two attendants running back & forth trying to get as many pumps going as they can, running ragged for a completely bogus reason. Then sometimes the attendants don't even try and the wait is longer, yet those are making the more rational choice of not driving themselves crazy making shit money for a worthless task.

I live in a place with a severe homeless problem. I wish these people had pointless government jobs rather than be out begging on the street.

So we could take 5,000 of them and have them dig holes all day. And the other 5,000 could fill in the holes on the following days. That's about as productive.

Or, if we're viewing it purely as a jobs program, find meaningful work, even if it was just patrolling the town they would have pumped gas in & instead picking up any and every piece of litter and garbage they see, documenting potholes they see in the road or loose branches around power lines for the town's DPW to deal with proactively.

For every 1 soldier actually shooting bullets or 1 bonafide back-bending farmer there are 999 comfy desk jobs for college educated people in the same org chart. Many for whom college was paid for by that government. Is that good or bad?

I’m gonna go with bad.

I'd rather have people on welfare than in these bureaucratic jobs that actually hamper progress, because well they need to be 'involved'

Is that always the case? No, of course not.