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September 7, 2005
Going to government to solve easy problems
It might not have changed anything, but at the time I kept thinking how it might have saved a life if the gas station had required drivers to pay in advance. All over the nation this year, there are reports of an increase in gas skips. The reports have not been accompanied by reliable crime statistics, but they have still generated a lot of news coverage. And it has been very poor quality coverage. Time magazine, for instance, ran a story on Aug. 14 by Logan Orlando about penalties being increased, licenses being suspended, self-serve being eliminated, gas station owners being given access to license registration records, and municipal governments requiring gas station owners to get payment in advance. Nowhere did Orlando explore the question of station owners solving the problem by themselves by requiring payment in advance. USA Today ran a story by William Welch and Brandon Stump. Their story never addressed the question of station owners solving the problem on their own - even when they quoted an Oklahoma state legislator who said of law enforcement, "You've got more things to do than be a bill collector for a service station." I surveyed news coverage of this issue all across the U.S. and saw no evidence of any reporters asking gas station owners, "Why don't you just get payment in advance?" Instead, it kept appearing in other forums, like letters to the editor. In Twin Falls, Idaho, where the city council adopted a city ordinance, a letter writer observed, "In the real world, the retailer goes out and puts a sign on each pump stating "Prepay for Fuel" or "Prepay After Dark," if that is how they want to solve the problem. Prepay is quite common in many areas of the country, and I am sure most of them did not go running to the city council to pass an ordinance making it mandatory. Retailers - I am sorry you have a problem with "gas skips" but, unfortunately, that is the way the world has become." But in fact, retailers are turning to government to solve a problem they can solve themselves. The portrayal of station owners as bystanding victims is strong - there's even a Web page called www.gastheft.com. In legislature after legislature, the same tired old "solution" - increasing penalties - is being enacted. Minnesota, Iowa, Virginia, and Oklahoma have done so. South Dakota opened vehicle registration records to station owners. And reporters are failing to question why government is even involved in the issue. (It's against the law in two states for customers to pump gas.) It's not as though advance payment doesn't suggest itself. In La Crosse, Wis., a station switched to advance payment without going to government. "I think it's great," a sheriff's officer told the La Crosse Tribune. "It eliminates the possibility of driving off without paying, either because of absentmindedness or the temptation to steal." "It's a huge problem," industry spokesman Jeff Lenard told USA Today about gas skips. In fact, it's a small problem, in the sense that there is an easy and easily implemented solution. In Nevada, where advance payment is standard operating procedure, this might seem like a problem that afflicts others. That's true, when it comes to the gas prices problem. But the journalism problem crosses state lines and affects policy making in every area. There was time when journalists considered it part of their jobs to scrutinize the claims of all parties, but boosterism has overtaken that practice. And the assumption that government is always a solution seems to be deeply ingrained. In 1996, Sparks supermarkets were turning to the city council for help in dealing with the theft of shopping carts. I did a story about how, around the nation and the world, supermarket owners invest in a device that makes it unnecessary for government to get involved. I saw it in Spain and later in San Francisco. A customer inserts a coin, which frees the cart from the line of carts. When he or she is finished shopping, the cart is returned to the line and the coin pops back out and is returned to the shopper. It even creates a bounty that low-income people can collect by finding shopping carts and returning them to stores. I don't remember if the council members ever adopted an ordinance, but at least they had more information. Myers is a veteran capital reporter. His column, "Against the Grain," appears here on Wednesdays. |
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