Petrol & why your wife shouldn't wear nylon knickers !!!

That's a big spark plug.

reg wrote: ||

I've got some sympathy for the woman trying to fill her tank and can only park with the car's filler cap on the opposite side to the pump.

Yes, I have to struggle sometimes when the hose is a bit short. Ripped the side out of a front tyre a coule of months ago by trying to get close to the pump, and touched the sharp metal edge to the kerb. It was a Tesco filling station, so I went in and complained to the staff, and was told I should learn to drive properly. So I went to see the customer services manager and told her. Got a new tyre.

Brian ( snipped-for-privacy@tesco.net) gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying :

Good customer service.

But you shouldn't rely on that - and you should learn to drive properly, yes.

I am the one who in such circumstances where the only pumps available are on the wrong side for the filler, simply reverses in - much easier than struggling with a hose which is too short.

This was featured on mythbusters: they showed that it is very hard, if not impossible, to start a fire/explosion with a mobile phone, and that in the US, where the pump can be latched on while the driver retuens to the car & sits down, fires started by the static generated are relatively common.

Don't you start..... ;)

It is theoretically possible for the RF energy emitted by a mobile phone to cause a spark and thus ignite petrol vapour, under worst case conditions, but this is the sort of hazard that comes out of a risk assessment rather than real life experience - practically speaking it's not usually going to be a concern. I think that this was a more credible hazard with the old CB radios which were higher power

But continuous wave...

It's mre kilely with a pulsed signal than a continuous signal, but you;re right, the odds of it happening are very low.

That's what the mythbusters show said. It's theoretically possible, but unlikely. Theytried very hard with a phone, and didn't manage it.

Firefighters, for example, have special radios that are deemed safe in an explosive atmosphere.

The radios will be "intrinsically safe" ones having for example battery compartments that are more secure than usual in order to prevent a hazard if the radio if dropped; the actual transmitting part of it won't be any different.

Chris

Brainiacs tried this too and completely failed to blow up a petrol-soaked caravan with a whole load of mobile phones. (being Brainiacs, they ignited it regardless ;-)

(snip excellent H&S story)

I have to admit that I have been working in safety and reliability for many years - but as an engineer rather than as a Safety Nazi. It's a problem in that the demand for risk assessments has gone way up but the supply of skilled and reasonable people hasn't. Unfortunately your story highlights a major failing in safety assessment and this sort of incident is not likely to go away without a major rethink of the whole process.

Here are the email addresses you need.

snipped-for-privacy@btinternet.com snipped-for-privacy@btinternet.com snipped-for-privacy@btinternet.com snipped-for-privacy@btinternet.com snipped-for-privacy@btinternet.com snipped-for-privacy@btinternet.com snipped-for-privacy@btinternet.com snipped-for-privacy@btinternet.com snipped-for-privacy@btinternet.com snipped-for-privacy@btinternet.com snipped-for-privacy@btinternet.com

Clive

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ISTR that actually, the output power was reduced over the standard variant (I worked in a fire brigade radio workshop for a while in the dim and distant past). This may, of course have been due to battery current limitations rather than any difference to the output stage. It

My experience was within an industry that used LPG. The radios that were used just had a reinforced battery compartment secured with a security screw. Those modifications plus the necessary certification roughly trebled the cost of them!

Chris

Yep. Some of our guys (not me) were certified to work on them. The batteries, like you say, had to be released with a key, and there was additional case protection and sealing.

I've never encountered a hose that's too short - and I fill up like this a lot of the time.

You just need to position the car with a bit more accuracy.

Pah!

I'd have told him to take driving lessons and to go whistle for his tyre.