I’ve never seen a cop fill up at the gas station.
Matrix confirmed
+1 for simulation theory
It depends on where you live, but a lot of large US cities have their own fueling stations. That way, the city can buy fuel by the tanker load and avoid gas taxes.
Still pay taxes even by the tanker. Can still get a lower price but fuel taxes are fuel taxes doesn’t really matter how you buy it.
Surely a public entity would be exempt from taxes, no?
Maybe. But in that case they would be exempt at a normal pump as well. Gas station by my house accept tax exempt transactions for the cemetery my family maintains.
Not likely to avoid tax, more to get discount rate on bulk purchase.
If its government going through a vendor they are likely paying more than market rate.
More than market rate for a tanker load. They’ll pay more for gas than the local gas station will, but still less than the gas station charges.
For a like-for-like product or a different service entirely?
“Like-for-like.” I work in state government. Time ago we needed to get some video equipment so had to contract with a vendor to acquire it. They literally just bought it from B&H and sold it back to us.
The city may have a maintenance depot where city-owned vehicles fuel up.
Same goes for (e.g.) school buses, snowplow trucks, and so on.
I worked at a small school that had diesel for the buses but vans had to be fueled at a gas station with a school credit card. Police departments in any major (American) city will definitely have several fueling stations for cop cars.
This. I worked in municipal government years ago. And there were a few different depots for the county vehicles, including police, to gas up.
My father used to repair gas pumps for a living. I went out with him on a few jobs. You’d be amazed how many large facilities that have their own fleet of cars end up setting up their own gas station. Universities, large hospitals, movie sets, and of course emergency vehicles.
Back when I worked IT for the city we actually got a tour of the main police station. There was a gas pump on sight where officers could make sure their car was full before and after patrols
Where I live (Germany) they usually have cards with which they can pay at most big gas stations. Kind of like a pin protected voucher card. They usually have a maximum limit though.
So when we operate a mobile gas station in catastrophic events like big wildfires etc. We usually have to get a limitless card, because otherwise we need a new card 3-4 times a day because we refill our 450 liter tank so often.
Most fire stations and probably police stations too have an emergency depot though. As does the city. Sometimes the city depot is shared with the depot of the public transport company though.
They have fleet fueling stations where we’re at. Car dealerships use them as well as cops and anyone else that needs it.
The city has a private fuel station (or if it’s a large city, they may even have multiple fuel stations,) which they use for their entire fleet of cars. Not just police, but also all the random Parks pickup trucks, Traffic trucks, forklifts, generators, etc…
Even a mid-sized city will have hundreds of vehicles, so it’s easier for them to simply deal with the fuel providers directly. Instead of having to deal with tax-exempt paperwork every time a car needs fuel, they simply buy the fuel in bulk and refuel at the private fuel depots.
When I go to fuel a city car, it has a fob that gets scanned at the pump. This tells it which car I’m filling. Then I have to input the mileage, so it knows how far the car has driven since the last fill. Then I have to scan my city ID, so it knows who is filling the pump. Then finally, it will calculate the amount of fuel needed to fill up and stop pumping automatically once it reaches that; The same way you can put $20 on a pump and it’ll stop, the pump goes “this car gets 32MPG and has driven [x] miles, so it needs [x/32] gallons of gas.”
This is mostly to prevent fuel theft, because I can’t simply fob into the pump then keep the pump active after the car is full. Like I can’t fill the car then also fill up a gas can, because the pump has already turned itself off once the car is full.
I’ve always seen cops filling up at gas stations. The Sheriff’s Patrol likes to pull in 3 deep to get gas and coffee. What are you on about?
I see the cops in my city, and a few nearby, at the gas station all the time. They all have gas cards. Some of the larger cities near me have pumps at a few of the city properties that the city employees can use to fill up city vehicles.
