Tempting fate or what !!!!!

[Steve L]

I've seen some idiotic things in my time but this on takes the biscuit.

A caravan with the two small windows open at the front beside the Gas locker, and two folks merrily puffing away on their ciggies and using the windows as their ash tray!!

Now I'm not against smoking, although I don't myself. But why tempt fate?

Gas may verywell be heavier than air, but it can be blown around by a wind.

Folks need to remember where the gas locker is and have a health respect for living.

It reminds me of a sceene I witnessed many years ago. A bloke called Charlie was having a few too many sherbets in the pub, when a mate popped in and said he could smell petrol around Charlies car in the pub car park. Charlie staggered outside and had a look under the car. He couldn't see in the dark so he lit his cigarette lighter. He found the leak alright. But he then had to push a flamming inferno of his car into the road dammed quick to avoid destroying the pub and a dozen parked cars. He ended up going to hospital with 1st degree burns over 30% of his body, setting his beard on fire. And to cap it all he got charged by the coppers for being drunk in charge of a motor vehicle. The lads still take the mick twenty years on by asking him how he got the sun tan !!!!

So the moral is. Think before you strike up and do things in a safe manner.

 

[X5Neil]

And there are those idiots that I see talking on mobile phones in the petrol station..some people don't have the brains they were born with.

 

[littlebasher]

Or the senile old duffer i saw in a Morrisons petrol station last year, pumping fuel while smoking a cigar.
I'm not sure what was more dangerous - the chance of him blowing himself up or the mass stampede of other drivers (including myself) leaving the petrol station in quite a hurry.

 

[littlebasher]

And there are those idiots that I see talking on mobile phones in the petrol station..some people don't have the brains they were born with.

Although i don't do it personally, to be fair the chances of igniting fuel vapour via a spark generated by a mobile phone are practically nil.

 

[Steve L]

And there are those idiots that I see talking on mobile phones in the petrol station..some people don't have the brains they were born with.

Although i don't do it personally, to be fair the chances of igniting fuel vapour via a spark generated by a mobile phone are practically nil.

I'm with you on this Basher. One only need's to watch Brainiac science abuse or Mythbusters to see just how minute the chance is of causing an explosion while using a mobile in the fuel station.

My OH got told off for using her iphone inside the car with the windows up. But parked the other side of the pump at our Morrisons, was a 8 wheel Tarmac tipper with his CB antenna clearly in contact with the steel canopy over the entire fuel station. All was needed was a "10 4 rubber duck" and there could very well be a static spark. Having been in the CB world, it is quite easy to blow a CB radio by simply putting a pin through the coax cable connecting the center core to the earth shield, thus causing a short circuit which could cause a spark or two.

The other soarce of sparking from cars and trucks is antistatic straps that drag on the road surface. Most of them are badly set up and only touch the ground when the vehicle stops. So any fuel/oil spillage then becomes fuel for a fire as the static spark is the ignition.

At the very same petrol station I saw a bloke put his half smoked and still lit *** in the dashboard ash tray of his open top MGB while he filled her up! The fore court manager reported 15 out of 16 vehicles for driving off without paying, but let the MGB go. I certainly wasn't gona stay put waiting for the bang! Fortunately the police had 15 statements of what actually happened.

 

[Lutz]

And here's one that beats them all.
Last week, while driving past a petrol station I recognised the cashier outside at the pumps catching a quick puff and having a chat during a quiet minute while there no one was filling up. I wonder if it occurred to her why no-one was filling up

 

[X5Neil]

My comment was only made as I was a hgv driver and we had a memo from Shell uk showing the aftermath of such an event caused by a mobile phone. Whilst the chances as you say are minimal why chance it.

 

[Lutz]

I was always under the impression that so long as the mobile phone is switched on, it is communicating with the nearest transmitter even if one is not telephoning.

 

[Gafferbill]

….…I once entered the oil refinery at Fawley Southampton with my 38-ton articulated lorry.
I was asked to hand over my battery-operated wristwatch, my mobile phone and any smoking materials at the gatehouse. I was told to put on long trousers (I was wearing shorts) before they let me enter.
I was told to wear a hard hat and eye protection if and when I left my cab.

They had no concerns over my truck with its hot exhaust and 24 volt electrical system!
Similarly on a garage forecourt sparks are more likely to come from vehicles than phones.

 

[DomDom]

To be frank, you've got more chance of winning the lottery than you have of causing a spark with a mobile phone. The rules about this came about in the days of analogue fixed car telephones which would output anything up to half a dozen watts at the aerial. A modern digital phone has a maximum of 600 milliwatts output in a device which is made mostly of plastic and which has no external aerial.
Smoking cigarettes in the vicinity of a volatile spirit however is a rather different matter.

That's Darwin Award territory.

 

[NickinFrance]

To be frank, you've got more chance of winning the lottery than you have of causing a spark with a mobile phone.

Much more chance, the lottery is won most weeks & a garage has never been blown up by a mobile phone.

The rules about this came about in the days of analogue fixed car telephones which would output anything up to half a dozen watts at the aerial. A modern digital phone has a maximum of 600 milliwatts output in a device which is made mostly of plastic and which has no external aerial.

I was always amused that to get service at most marine fuel pumps you have to wake them up by VHF blasting out 5W, in most cases with a 6' ariel feet from the pump.

Smoking cigarettes in the vicinity of a volatile spirit however is a rather different matter.

That's Darwin Award territory.

One of our local bars which also sells fuel put ashtrays on the petrol pumps outside when the smoking ban came in a couple of years ago which are well used & the place is still there