Speaking of Gas...

I heard this on the news a couple days ago and I forgot to blog on it. This is amazing to me. We must be one of the laziest states in the union:

So when gas prices recently started climbing, Gov. Jon Corzine (D) suggested the state test self-service pumps to lower the cost of traveling.

The result was a near revolt.

In the days following Corzine's suggestion, his office was flooded with 1,400 e-mails and phone calls -- the biggest and fastest response to an issue the governor has received since taking office in January. Nearly all were in opposition.

Sensing a political disaster, Corzine backed off less than a week after he floated the idea of testing self-service along the New Jersey Turnpike. New Jersey, together with Oregon, will remain the last two full-service states in the country.

This is a typical reaction:

Many shuddered at the thought of having to get out of their vehicles in the rain, the snow, or the scorching heat, just to refuel.

"Gas would have to be at least 20 cents cheaper before I would want to get out of my car," said Chris Rose, 30, of Pennsauken, as he leaned back and watched the attendant unscrew his gas-tank cap at Mac's Amoco station on Route 73 in Maple Shade.

And so is this:

One morning this week, the price for regular at the Sunoco Station at the Thomas A. Edison Service Area, was $2.87 a gallon. Even so, Amanda Darian, 18, didn't think it would be worth pumping her own gas, even if it saved her 5 cents a gallon.

"A nickel? Nah," says Darian, a student at Monmouth University in West Long Branch.

Even though she's going to have to work more this summer to pay her gas tab, she says, "I just don't want to get out" of the car. She has been to other states, and when it came time to fill up, "I didn't even know how."

I don't know how to pump my own gas. I drive to the Philadelphia area three times a week to go to seminary and every time I go I have to make sure I have enough gas to make it there and back because I'm afraid of getting stuck not knowing what to do and not being able to find someone to help (which happened to me on a trip to NY). But what gets me the most is this:

Corzine retreated after about 1,400 e-mails and calls poured in from a mostly outraged public. Concern about other state issues paled in comparison. A proposal to raise the sales tax by one cent, for example, received about 200 responses from the public, says Brendan Gilfillan, a spokesman for the governor.

So, go ahead and laugh America! We New Jerseyans care more about being able to sit in our car in the rain than we do about how much we pay for gas and taxes!