Rick's b.log - 2024/04/10
It is the 21st of November 2024 You are 3.17.179.132, pleased to meet you!

How not to fill up

Back and forth, I guess to get his credit card or something. He ended the call, and set about sorting out his refilling (which fuel, enter PIN, do you want a ticket...).

Once that was done, he picked up the nozzle and hung it up again to pull his phone out of his pocket. He picked up the nozzle again and stuck it into his car, while using his thumb to write some sort of message on his phone.

Nothing happened, as you might well expect. Imagine the look of surprise when a little "no sale" receipt pops out of the machine.

Nope, that's not how you do it.

The reason I'm writing this blog article is because he tried again. Here's a picture a few moments later as he was entering his choices for the second time. Note where the nozzle is.

Nope, that's really not how you do it.

As I'm sure you can imagine, not a drop came out of the nozzle. He hung it back up, took it again, put it into the car, and did a doubletake as it spat out a "no sale" receipt.

Being a good citizen, he comes over to me to say that the petrol distributor doesn't work.
"Oh, it's okay", I reply, "I'm here for diesel."

It had been a hard day at work, and that made my day.

Your comments:

David Pilling, 12th April 2024, 13:09

Maybe one of those new electric car users, sent out with someone else's car. Or someone not used to filling their own car.    Here, pick up nozzle, wait for person in kiosk to clear the settings, and then hold the handle to make fuel come out. The really clever thing is how the fuel will cut off before you get your feet wet. (see Steve Mould on YouTube).    If you do something wrong, then the voice of GOD will intervene. They watch from the kiosk and there are loud speakers.    I've seen video of USA truck drivers filling up, and they go away for a long time and leave fuel flowing unattended.    Maybe he is a truck driver.    I would have told him what to do.

Rick, 12th April 2024, 13:57

The idea of him being an electric car driver fails at the first hurdle. He's too old to have grown up only driving electrics.  Maybe if he'd been paying less attention to his phone...    (and the reason I didn't help is that it says CLEARLY not to screw around with a phone at the filling station. Somebody with that sort of attitude isn't going to want to be instructed by a foreigner...

jgh, 12th April 2024, 23:54

I think Europe-wide regulations ban lock-fill pump handles exactly to avoid the truck-driver problem. Yeah, it's annoying holding the trigger in for a WHOLE 300 SECONDS! but it's safer.