Alvaro martínez is a young content creator from spain which writes content on his spare time and greatly enjoys every day he gets to share with the automotive community
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A small reflexion about how a simple action in a gas station shows the decency of the average driver on the roads.
Refueling… sometimes it is painful to watch those numbers in the counter as the man in the pump pumps whatever you asked him. But, what some people do after they have paid for their gas? Well some buy some snacks and stretch their legs, and other people like me… they simply head to the air pump to put some air on their tires and reset the average distance count on their odometer to know how many miles they are going to get from their current tank of petrol.
But… today when I was going to refuel at a gas station I found myself with a somewhat annoying sight, and it was the air pump hose lying twisted on the ground and not adequately on its hanger as it should be. Calmly picking it up I went to pump my tires but… I realized there was no air going in because the hose was leaky.
How it all ended?
Resigned to having to lose a few extra Miles out of my fuel tank I headed to the next gas station down the road to try and inflate my tires and… to make it worse I couldn’t find the air hose on the pump. Why? Because someone incredibly careless had ripped it off as they drove away instead of picking it up and leaving it on its hanger as it should be, the next couple miles on the motorway felt incredibly infuriating as my sporty diesel hatch kept losing range through inefficiency. And… not to mention the occasional work van cutting me off on the passing lane as I approached rather fast when moving to pass a truck on the middle lane.
And finally I arrived to a gas station near my house, I felt happy because I knew the air pump always worked there and people often were decent on that station to leave the hose on its place, but unfortunately… The mouth of the hose wouldn’t latch onto my tire’s valve no matter how hard I tried, defeated and angry I had no choice but to inflate my tires at home with a chinese bicycle pump-.10 minutes of pumping that left me exhausted as I went on to make lunch for my sister.
And now… for a small question…
I want to calmly ask a question to all of those drivers I met on the roads of Spain through their disconsiderate actions… Did it really cost so much to roll up the air hose of the air pump back on its hanger when you were finished pumping air on your tires? How much of a hurry you were into that you forgot to unhook the hose of your tires and put the hose it back on its hanger? Or… just not drop the mouth of the air hose against the ground?
I know there’s not a lot of people these days who care about you, let alone people who know you but… People like me like to keep their tires at the correct pressure indicated by the manufacturer, having low tire pressure doesn’t only hurts my fuel efficiency and my wallet, it also wears them out quicker making me having to go in for an early tire change I wouldn’t have needed with properly inflated tires.
Having said all of this… I really do hope this little rant of mine has got you “pumped up” for the upcoming content I will soon upload to this platform.
-Álvaro Martínez
Published in All Rants
Over in The UK, it’s under tension so retracts when you let go. So you either walk it to the box or let go and have it batter the bodywork of your car. Seems to have done the trick
We really should have that system in spain.
This post is completely relatable. So often I have found the air and water hoses laid on the ground (sometimes damaged) and the windshield washer/squeegee either damaged or missing. I wish people took better care of “public use” items like those.
Sometimes I do wonder what goes on their heads as they drive away leaving the hose on the ground, and then I keep thinking about how furious they get the second their children dare not to flush the toilet or put their toys back on their box.
We really should start using metal hoses that the second they snap back they seriously damage the bodywork. Or simply the pump visually recognizing the guy going for the car door and drive off frequently annoying/announcing “hey this guy’s a knob! he ain’t picking up the hose!”