Editorial: Bring service back to stations

On the websites of all the major oil companies New Zealand the phrase "service station" is easily to be found.

Subheadings under the companies' listings in phone directories likewise list the names and numbers of their "service stations".

But a report this week suggested that service was in short supply at the outlets.

A Howick man was outraged when staff at a BP station refused to check the water level of a woman's car in case they were burned.

He reported that the employee who had been asked for help replied "We don't do water."

The company's communications manager blamed the Occupational Safety and Health (OSH) regulations administered by the Labour Department, which state that "we are required to do an assessment of hazards and take steps to mitigate those hazards".

It transpires that BP has undertaken these assessments and identified that checking water in radiators, changing tyres and even filling tyres with air "are all potential hazards to our staff". Hence the bans.

BP is doubtless so busy congratulating itself on being such a responsible employer that its communications manager hasn't noticed how ridiculous her statement sounded.

Doubtless the assessments of risk to staff detected that the forecourt bowsers dispense on demand highly volatile liquids which could, if not handled correctly, cause a catastrophic explosion.

The fact that such explosions do not occur on a daily basis in suburbs up and down the country is presumably not the result of blind luck; it has to do with the fact that staff have been trained how to deal with the assessed risk.

In any case the the risk cannot be too severe, since complete strangers are allowed to come on to the forecourts of the oil company's outlets and - without any assessment as to their expertise or aptitude - operate the pumps themselves.

Indeed, in most places, if they do not operate the pumps themselves they will not get any fuel, because staff don't do the pumping any more.

It's worth noting here that the company has not mitigated this risk by stopping all petrol sales. So their explanation that they ban checks of water and tyres because they don't want to put their staff in harm's way is pretty lame.

It would be wrong to blame the employees, who are the ones left on the front line looking bad as a result of this corporate PR-speak. They are not highly paid and, as occasional news reports gloomily attest, they are more vulnerable to attack than the average worker.

Neither is it fair to target BP in particular, since plainly other "service" stations are taking the same approach.

Any motorist who gets help on a forecourt these days has plainly stumbled into a place where policy has not trumped common sense.

But the Howick man's experience and its sequels underline two things. First, OSH regulations are not intended to stop people doing things; they are there to stop them doing them unsafely.

Nine out of 10 of us know that removing a radiator cap is about as dangerous as taking a baking dish out of the oven, which is to say that it's not dangerous at all if you do it correctly and use a protective glove.

The way you mitigate risk is by teaching staff to do it correctly, not by forbidding them from doing it at all.

Second, the oil companies are being disingenuous when they seek refuge in OSH regulations to explain why they have taken the service out of service stations.

They have turned their outlets into mini-markets because it helps them maximise profit in a business - selling petrol - with cruelly tight margins.

There's nothing wrong with that, of course, and most of us don't mind filling the tank ourselves if we think it's keeping costs down.

But there are some people - think an elderly woman in her Sunday best, perhaps, or a disabled driver, or just someone who has never opened a bonnet - who need assistance, or service, as it used to be called.

If service stations can't deliver it - and do so with a smile, free of charge - it is surely a sad commentary on what we have come to.