@Brian1946 According to the Time article I mentioned, during the 1973 oil crisis, in the U.S., whether or not gas was rationed and the type of rationing employed did vary around the country, from state to state, city to city.
The full-tank syndrome is bringing out the worst in both buyers and sellers of that volatile fluid. When a motorist in Pittsburgh topped off his tank with only 110 worth and then tried to pay for it with a credit card, the pump attendant spat in his face. A driver in Bethel, Conn., and another in Neptune, N.J., last week escaped serious injury when their cars were demolished by passenger trains as they sat stubbornly in lines that stretched across railroad tracks. “These people are like animals foraging for food,” says Don Jacobson, who runs an Amoco station in Miami. “If you can’t sell them gas, they’ll threaten to beat you up, wreck your station, run over you with a car.” Laments Bob Graves, a Lexington, Mass., Texaco dealer: “They’ve broken my pump handles and smashed the glass on the pumps, and tried to start fights when we close. We’re all so busy at the pumps that somebody walked in and stole my adding machine and the leukemia-fund can.”
Rationing Plans. To help minimize such madness, officials in Massachusetts, Maryland, New Jersey, Washington, B.C., Bade County, Fla., and other areas last week adopted Oregon-type rationing schemes that will allow motorists with even-numbered license plates to buy gas on even-numbered dates, and those with odd-numbered plates to buy on odd-numbered dates. Some states have begun requiring a $3 minimum purchase.
LOL. A $3 mandatory minimum purchase. Those were the days! $3 would have bought you about 8 gallons of gas in1973. We used to cruise around in those days, just like in That ‘70s Show, if there wasn’t party or something else to do, and everyone would chip in a quarter or 50 cents for gas and we’d be more than good for the night, even in the gas guzzlers we had back then.