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All Interstates are going to have private services dotted along the highway, they have signs marking what services are available at each exit if any. It's only out west you need to be careful especially if you get off the Interstate. Some states have rest areas but those are glorified bathrooms, they might have some vending machines and maybe some picnic tables.
Closest thing to full service stop that I'm aware of other than a truck stop is the along the PA Turnpike, but that is a toll road that extends the length of the state nearly the size of England. It's about a 7 hour trip from one end to the other. They will have everything except overnight accommodations. Some days they even have a farmers market.
That's a bit surprising, seems like a huge safety issue not having someone at least to monitor for larger gas spills.
Do they actually turn the pumps off at night where you're at unless it's a 24 hour convenience store? They certainly don't here. Even Oregon when it wasn't legally in rural areas it wasn't particularly hard to randomly find a gas station that didn't turn the pumps off.
Do they actually turn the pumps off at night where you're at unless it's a 24 hour convenience store?
I used to work at gas station 30 years ago and they certainly turned the pumps off at night. Seems to me you would have to be some kind of idiot not to turn them off. I have a relative that owns a station and he leaves the diesel on for some some commercial accounts but you need a key.
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Motorway Services were always a bit of a joke in the UK with brands such as Happy Eater and Little Chef, however today they tend to have a selection of eateries and shops.
The second one looks like a PA turnpike service plaza, even has same peaked entrance. Inside is a handful of different restaurants, convenience store etc. Once again this is not the norm and this is a toll road, the truck stops off the Interstates would also be similar and are pretty common. The service plazas were part of the original design from the early 40's, it's considered America's first super highway.
The truck stops in Turkey are great. There's always a cafeteria with good, reasonably-priced food, a store to buy necessities and souvenirs and a small mosque or prayer room. Bathrooms are usually quite clean and usually have at least a few European-style toilets.
Quite a few of the truck stops are catering well to the tour groups.
One oddity that comes to mind, in Bulgaria, back in the Soviet days, you had to decide how much you wanted, and go across the street to a kiosk in the street market, and buy a voucher for gas, then take it back to the gas station to redeem it for the value of the coupons.
In Liberia in the 70s, my driver once stopped at a gas station that still had one of those old fashioned hand pumps. The attendant would manually pump a gallon of gas up the the full line in a glass bowl at the top of the pump, then release it down a hose into the gas tank. Repeat for as many gallons as you wanted to buy. All the bystanders would call out in unison the number of gallons, to make sure the attendant didn't pump five and charge for six. It wasn't even a gas station, just a guy with a plump next to the road.
In Mali, my driver had a bunch of pop bottles in the back seat full of gas, and when he ran out, he'd pour in another 12 ounces. He explained that the amount of gas a car used was proportional to how much was in the tank, so he always kept it nearly empty.
In most third world countries Ive been in lately, gas stations are pretty much like the ones in the US without convenience stores. An apron with a pump island on it, and a ten-year-old attendant filling the tank from a modern gas pump, the most prestigious job a kid can have. About four grades of fuel, prices vividly displayed on a big red LED board. Most people just getting a few liters at a time. You don't hear much "fill 'er up". Taxi drivers might tank up several times a day, just buying enough to handle their next fare, who might already be in the car. Very quick service, maybe 60 seconds..
I have seen some YouTube videos of people road tripping in Africa where they don't have manual pump gas. People buy their gas from guys sitting on the side of a road with some gas cans. I don't know what kind of infrastructure they have to get the gas there. I guess a tanker truck comes through every so often, and these guys fill up all their gas cans from it. I guess it works for them.
Last edited by Cloudy Dayz; 06-26-2018 at 04:36 PM..
Parking spaces for 900+ semis (short for semi-trailer trucks, or what the British OP would call an articulated lorry).
The Petro and TCofA truckstops in Ontario, California, near the I-10 and I-15 interchange, have combined parking for nearly 1200 trucks.
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