What is life like with your car? Let us know and win £500 in John Lewis vouchers | No thanks

Mugger ridge

Having read you letters column in last Saturday's Telegraph about pre-paying for fuel before you fill up at fuel stations, I thought you might be interested in my experience of this. It was in 1981 in Chicago, I took my hire car to the fuel pump, it didn't start pumping petrol. I looked across to the attendant in his kiosk, who told me I had to pay up front by shouting. I got a wallet, and walked over the twenty or so yards. Two kids on a bike with a gun, then shot forward from goodness only knows where, and mugged me at gunpoint, as they knew I must have cash on me. These were the days before credit cards were widespread. The guy in the kiosk, behind his glass screen, just simply shrugged as I was obviously some kind of stupid sap, so I returned to my car, got some more cash out, drove over to the guy, paid without getting out of the car, drove back to the pump, put my cash away, locked the car, filled up, drove back over to collect my change, without getting out, and drove off. Whether this sort of thing will happen here I sincerely hope not.

Asked on 13 June 2009 by

Answered by Honest John
The muggers will probably be sponsored by the next Brown government as part of a youth opportunities programme to train them to be traffic wardens or penalty enforcement officers.
Similar questions
Regarding the letter about short measures from pumps. For many years I was a service engineer covering filling stations for a number of oil companies. Part of the work was testing and recalibrating meters...
I was told recently by a bank official that if I were to present a cheque showing decimal parts of a penny, that it would be considered invalid, even bordering on illegal, as it was not, in effect, using...
I recently purchased diesel fuel from Messrs Road Chef via their Strensham North outlet located upon the M5 at £1.439 per litre. Incidentally the fuel purchased was 10.01 litres, which at £1.439 should...