Having seen people smoking, doing really ill-advised things while filling containers, and ignoring other warning signage at the pumps in the past few years… those concerns are still legitimate. 
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Yes, the technology is better. My family had gas stations when I was a kid. I remember a brief period when my dad had to set the pumps to price by the quart because the price of gas exceeded the mechanical gearing’s range.
I also remember him dismissing the fancy automated pumps, saying nobody’s going to want to pump their own gas.
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Ok, your report says there’s been an average of 3 deaths per year nationwide due to fires at service stations. Any deaths are tragic, but if the primary purpose of employing attendants was for public safety, we’d probably save many more lives by employing that same number of people as crossing guards instead.
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I’ve been using the Montvale service area on the Garden State Parkway a few times a year for about 30 years. There is always a wait even though there are PLENTY of pumps not in use. You’ll have one attendant working a whole row of pumps, and you have to wait to get to the pump because there are never enough attendants on duty to run more rows. You have to wait for the attendant to start pumping. You have to wait to have the nozzle taken out. You have to wait to hand your card to the attendant and you have to wait for the attendant to bring your card back.
When I fill my own car, I may have to wait to get to the pump, but I start and stop fueling immediately and I pay immediately. And station owners leave every pump available, not just the ones they can find staff to cover.
If they had every pump open and enough attendants to handle fewer pumps apiece, then they might make it faster than self-serve, but that’s not how they do it.
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I guess we have different NJ experiences. I find busy places like Costco or near the Holland Tunnel fast, but have in fact never bought gas on the NJTP or GSP. So, as they say, YMMV.
Death is not the only measure of harm or a public safety problem.
I’m not going to derail by comparing this to other explosive materials folks are exposed to on a daily basis. However, I believe that customers and employees have cause for concern.
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When I worked in a gas station it was reasonably effective. Someone would generally beep, we’d come out and pump for them. It was only every couple of shifts (I worked overnights so it may have been different in the day).
We had a decent amount of spills at the station I worked at, generally small (only 1 large enough to trigger reporting rules). Most of the spills involved small amounts when someone drove off with a hose still attached. But the trained attendants were not much use, sprinkle some kitty litter on it and sweep it into the red bucket instead of the black. But judging by the soil samples of any reused former gas station lot I’ve seen spills are a much bigger issue (direct tank leakage too, but off topic).
I’ll throw in the health risks of just continually moving about in the exhaust cloud of the station all day. The asthma and respiratory problem numbers are stark for people within hundreds of yards of busy gas stations, I can’t imagine standing in the center of it is better.
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