Zipcar has always paid for all the gas members use – out of the money we pay to drive the cars, of course.  This way nobody gets caught with the “hot potato” of an empty gas tank.  Everybody pays the same amount for the car, and once in a while you have to take a few minutes to swing into a gas station.  Most of the cars I’ve reserved have had nearly full tanks.

This morning, Zipcar announced in an e-mail to Boston-area members (maybe all members) that they have a new procedure for pumping gas.  “There isn’t a whole lot we can do to make filling the tank more fun,” they wrote, “but we can make it easier.”  Here’s how it worked before:

In the driver’s visor was a gas card with a label on the front with the “Driver ID” number – the same number on every card in every car in the city.  You’d use this just like a credit card at the pump, but then you’d have to enter the odometer (which you would invariably have forgotten to check before getting out) and then the Driver ID number.

Here’s the new, “easier” system: There’s still a gas card.  You still enter the odometer.  You still enter a Driver ID number.  Now, though, the Driver ID is your own personal membership number – the number printed on the front of your Zipcard.

This is a horrible idea!  It’s certainly no easier than using the shared Driver ID, and it’s much more inconvenient.  There’s no other reason for me to know my Zipcard number.  It was assigned arbitrarily when I joined, and I haven’t used it since.  You don’t need it to reserve cars, and unless you call Zipcar on the phone (which you’d do only in unusual circumstances) nobody will ever ask you for it.  Until now.  Now, whenever I get gas I’ll have to pull the Zipcard out of my wallet.

Making this worse, the Zipcard is an RFID card, so it’s hidden in the deepest recesses of my wallet alongside my CharlieCard – two items I’ve never removed.  To use a car, I just hold my wallet up to the windshield.  Admittedly I can’t be sure how many Zipcar members know they can do this, but I can infer from how many T passengers do.  Watch a line of people boarding a train and you’ll see at least half of them (probably closer to 70%) hold their wallets or change purses directly up to the sensor.  The only people who regularly remove their CharlieCard and tap it directly are those with large purses where the card is buried somewhere inside.

(I did once see a pack of tourists standing at a fare gate trying to figure out which side of the card the sensor needs to “see,” but those are tourists.  They also think B and D trains go to Lechmere.  Ha!  Fools!)

I know, really this is at worst a minor inconvenience.  Surely Zipcar’s real motivation was that this scheme makes their administrative processing easier, and I support that.  My objection is that they announced they were making it “easier” for us, as though Zipcar members are so stupid we’d never notice the scheme they implemented is, if anything, harder.  You have a lot of good policies, Zipcar, but this one was poorly executed.

P.S.  Stop addressing me solely by my last name.  It makes me feel like I’m in a high school gym class.  “Hi Jones.  Jones, I want to see more hustle!”  If you don’t know my first name, “Dear Sir” would be preferable.

P.P.S.  Get some Civic hybrids around here, will ya?