Bonneville America Forums Forums Off Topic Discussion Forums Lounge Cell Phones and Gas Stations

I just got a new cell phone from work. One of the (many) warnings in the manual is to turn it off at gas stations. I have also noticed that most gas stations now have signs to not use cell phones when getting gas. To me it is funny. It is all the result of an urban legend passed around on the internet many years ago. I remember that Mythbusters had a show on it and disproved it and I found on Snopes.com an article about it. Amazing how there is absolutely no proof that it could happen or has happened and everyone is in a paranoid panic over it.

Soren

I just finished a novel by Stephen King called "Cell". Everyone that used cell phones turned to phone crazies and tried to kill all the normies. An interesting read for the times. I probably would have written it differently. All the bikers kill all the cagers that use cell phones

The original reason for banning cell phones at gas pumps was coz (very rarely) the phone signals screwed with the pump signals to the computers and the gas companies were worried about losing money (similar to phones screwing with airplane guidance systems). The remotley possible "this phone can ignite gasoline fumes" thing was only justification.

The other reason they state is the distraction factor of gassing up while talking on the phone, which is as likely as the distraction factor of talking on the phone while driving I guess.

Matt

The other thing is that the longer you are there dilly-dallying about pumping gas, yakking on the cell and so on, is time lost for another customer to gas up (and spend a $50) if you'd have just pumped and got out of the way...

I gotta tell ya, I have great respect for fuel vapors. The flash-point of gasoline and jet fuel is so low that any kind of static electricity can ignite them. I have experience with this. I was stationed in Germany. As the Support Platoon Leader, I was repsonsible for my aviation battalion's ammo and fuel. By regulation, we were required to sample our fuel monthly, in order to perform water and sediment checks. My seargent disconnected a sample hose and we had two 5000 gallon (approx 19000 litres, each) tank trucks go up in smoke. We got the fire out before any explosion, thank heavens.