this post was submitted on 07 Jul 2023
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IIRC, the rate of explosions at gas stations started going up around the time that cell phones were becoming popular. The investigation teams would review camera footage and see people on their phones. So the government changed the mandatory warning stickers on the pumps to include a "do not use your phone while pumping" warning.
Turns out it wasn't because people were using their phones near the gas pump, but that they were getting back in their cars to play on their phone while the pump was running. They'd build up a static charge by getting in and out of the car, which would arc to the pump handle when they went to hang it up.
It took a while before they realized what the actual problem was.
Interesting. Any sauce? Just curious why this is no longer a problem.
NPR interview with an NTSB guy I heard a few years back with a bit of googling around (again, years ago). Hence the "IIRC." Snopes has details on why phones themselves aren't dangerous around pumps.
And it's still a problem - it's just that it's not the phones themselves that cause it. You'll notice that pumps now tell you to stay by the handle and not get back into your car.
In the UK you have to stand there and hold the pump. They don't fit the catch that allows the pump to keep going while you don't hold it. The pumps in the US are very convenient but petrol streaming out potentially while no-one is paying attention always feels like a bad idea.
I've had fuel pour out once - but not from the pump. We had someone replace the fuel pump and they forgot to put the gasket on.
I agree it sounds like a crazy idea, but it works. The automatic cutoff on those fuel dispensers works really, really well. I've been driving for over 30 years and have never seen it fail.
I'm not sure exactly how it's done (I'm guessing some sort of pressure or seal mechanism), but the pumps are also designed so that if the pump isn't fit properly into the car's gas tank, the catch will automatically drop and the fuel will stop streaming. So if you start to pull the handle out of the tank while it's still pumping fuel, it'll automatically turn off
Mythbusters had an episode about it