You may never have tried to escape from a gas station without paying, but there are some who have. Successfully.

This kind of crime is called a drive-off and it happens quite frequently. A check of area stations reveals it even occurs in the sheltered Lakes Region of Maine.

And, with this week’s even more expensive prices at the pump, the crime could become even more popular.

“With the rising price in gas I would assume people would drive off more,” said C.N. Brown Company spokesperson John Pinto.

Pinto, whose company supplies gas to the local Mobil stations, said their stations do not require prepayment for cash sales and hopes they never have to get to that point.

“There’s a lot of trust, a lot of repeat customers in the community,” he said. “It’s that connection with our customers, our neighbors, that’s important.”

The company believes requiring customers to pay in advance would jeopardize that connection. However, they do have cameras positioned so the cashiers can watch people fill up.

Capt. William Rhoads of the Cumberland County Sheriff’s Office said his department spoke to various station owners at the beginning of the summer, suggesting that they require prepayment to cut down on drive-offs.

A station that does require their customers to pay before pumping is the Exxon in Windham.

“We’ve done pre-pay for over a year,” said manager JoAnn Vosmus. “It’s easier on the cashiers – they have enough responsibility in the store.”

Vosmus has not seen a decline in customers since the policy was introduced. She estimates that 75 percent of their customers pay by credit or debit cards and 25 percent pay with cash.

Most of the area’s stations encourage their cashiers to record license plate numbers. Some use mirrors to improve visibility or have intercom systems.

At Speedy Gas in Raymond, owner and manager Mark Accousti has noticed an increase in drive-offs.

“We have maybe three a week, about $100 worth,” he said. “The clerk tries to get a description and license number and then calls the sheriff’s department.”

Accousti added that it’s fairly easy to spot who’s going to try to drive off. It’s usually the ones that pull in behind the clerk’s back at the last pump and keep looking around, checking the area.

“Quite a few get away with it,” Accousti said. “Without a license number, it’s a lost cause.”

Windham Cumberland Farms manager Teresa Williams said they “go through about $100 in drive-offs every week” as well.

“You can tell by the way people take off,” she said. “Usually, they’ve pumped an odd amount of gas. One drive-off almost caused an accident trying to pull out of here.”

According to Don McClellan at Sunset Variety in Raymond, this spring they “had a bit of a problem” with drive-offs. Now, they keep the pumps shut off. And, while the pumps used to beep when a customer had finished pumping gas, now they beep at the beginning of the transaction so the cashier is alerted.

McClellan said those who drive off intentionally obviously know what they’re doing. But he added that sometimes people, distracted by a conversation or by buying breakfast in the store, unintentionally drive off without paying.

Dan Mills, district manager at C.N. Brown, said most of the people who plan to drive off leave the nozzle on the ground because at the Mobil stations, putting it back causes a beep inside the store.

He said drive-offs happen at the North Windham Mobil three to four times a week. The Raymond Mobil, while the busiest of those stations he manages, has fewer drive-offs.

But Mills agrees with McClellan’s assessment: “Most of the drive-offs are people forgetting to pay – they have something else going on, they get distracted, they have kids in the back seat yelling.”