Gas station etiquette

[JeepersCreepers]

Do you follow gas station etiquette? The unwritten rules that say you should all be facing the same direction and so on? I do and it annoys me when I wait behind someone for them to finish and someone comes in from the other side and swipes my spot.

 

[tuner]

Oooh, that's a tricky one; there are so many times when I don't simply because there is a pump available that nobody is using, and I'm willing to turn my car around so that the pump is on the side the gas tank is on. I never take people's spots, though, at least not to my knowledge.

 

[DaMan]

My friend and I were just dealing with that last night and since they are so nice, they kept waiting and cars kept jumping in front of us. It was irritating me so bad!

 

[JeepersCreepers]

Tuner, you should drive around so that you are facing the right direction instead of facing the opposite direction of traffic. You wouldn't drive backwards down the road would you?

 

[MaximumSpeed]

Most of the time, the gas tank is on the driver's side of the vehicle (I think, though I'm not sure) that it ALWAYS is on newer vehicles. Therefore, direction of travel alternates on most of the gas stations in our area.

 

[coup]

I try my best not to go to the really busy stations. I try to pull all the way forward and not pull in so my hood is to another cars hood. But here no one seems to follow any sort of etiquette. It is everyone for themselves.

 

[JeepersCreepers]

Maximum, what I meant is that one whole lane goes one direction and the other side goes the other direction. What irritates me is when people pull in all willynilly so that one persons trunk is to another persons trunk, or hood to hood.

 

[tuner]

Tuner, you should drive around so that you are facing the right direction instead of facing the opposite direction of traffic. You wouldn't drive backwards down the road would you?

When the station is set up so that you have to face a certain way to get back onto the road facing the right direction, then of course I do, but there are many stations in my area that are large enough that this isn't an issue...so I never thought of it.

Maximum, what I meant is that one whole lane goes one direction and the other side goes the other direction. What irritates me is when people pull in all willynilly so that one persons trunk is to another persons trunk, or hood to hood.

What's wrong with trunk to trunk or hood to hood? If you're trunk-to-hood and the person in front of you isn't done yet, you back out and leave, don't you?

 

[JeepersCreepers]

No I don't because generally when you are all facing one direction someone is waiting behind you. At least that is how it works where I live. I very rarely go to an empty gas station.

 

[tuner]

Ah, I see, I think it's just different where I live, then. Here, people don't line up directly behind a car, if they can help it. They park up on the side leaving space for cars to back out and leave as needed, or for other cars that aren't getting filled up to drive by, park, and go into the store to get whatever they're getting.

 

[JeepersCreepers]

Most of the gas stations in my area have a completely different area for the people going in for things other than gas, they don't need to drive through the lanes to get to the building. If they don't wait in any sort of a line how on Earth do they ever figure out whose turn it is?

 

[MaximumSpeed]

We rarely have so many people in a station that a line *needs* to form, so it's pretty much a moot point, I guess. Since there's usually ONE pump empty, the next person pulling in will just take that pump, regardless.