Service your car? So old-fashioned

A Health and Safety expert said the cutting back on tasks for employee safety was not limited to petrol stations. Photo / Daily Post

The expectation that a customer gets the oil, water, and tyres checked at a service station is "dated" and "unreasonable", says an oil company.

"Servicing a car was never attached to the pump," said Sharon Buckland, a spokeswoman for Chevron New Zealand, which owns the Caltex brand.

"Staff are now no more qualified to do these things than someone on the street.

"Why would you ask someone that sells milk and bread to look under the hood of your car?"

The idea of service station staff performing such mechanical tasks was a dated idea and unreasonable, she said.

Most petrol station owners felt the move to turn stations into small supermarkets has made the servicing of customers' cars on the forecourt obsolete.

The consumer demand for all-hours service stations which served groceries meant checking oil and water was no longer a priority for staff, they said.

After a Howick customer complained that a BP service station attendant refused to check her radiator water, the company told the Herald staff were banned from doing so.

Spokeswoman Diana Stretch said the company prevented its service station attendants checking water in radiators because of health and safety concerns.

Tyres were also not to be pumped up by attendants if the driver did not know the required pressure.

She said these were potential hazards, and in the event of an accident the company would be liable.

The Department of Labour told the Herald that the Health and Safety in Employment Act did not set rules for companies, but required all employers to guarantee workers' safety.

Spokesman Steve Jones said it was up to the employers to decide whether an activity was banned.

BP petrol attendants were being prevented from performing tasks by the company, not by OSH regulations.

"How BP chooses to respond to a particular set of circumstances is their decision as an employer," said Mr Jones.

Mobil New Zealand had no formal safety policy for attendants, but instructed workers not to remove radiator caps because of the risk of water scalding them.

Spokesman Alan Bailey said the primary function of attendants was to look after motorists buying fuel and groceries.

A spokeswoman for Progressive Enterprises, which owns a large percentage of Gull New Zealand's stations, said the company did not prevent employees from carrying out tasks.

She said staff could make their own decision on whether checking radiator caps was dangerous.

A customer service organisation said BP should act with courtesy instead of blaming health and safety rules.

KiwiHost New Zealand managing director Jared Brixton said that in an industry with narrow margins, petrol stations put too much emphasis on selling groceries at the expense of service.

"[They] seem more inclined to think about getting more people inside than in teaching their staff to value the customer.

A Health and Safety expert said the cutting back on tasks for employee safety was not limited to petrol stations.

She cited airlines' decision to stop staff placing travellers' baggage on conveyor belts because of a high incidence of injuries.