I’ve recently come across someone selling a gas nozzle hold open device, marketed as the Gas Widget.
After doing a bit of research, I was surprised that I could not find any information, prohibiting this item from being manufactured .
Does anyone have any legal info regarding this, so that I could pass on to the seller of this item, and hopefully stop him from selling more of these potentially dangerous devices.
I’m guessing the guy (or girl) that manufactures and sells these is not going to stop selling them until he’s forced to. An email from a random person will probably not make him give up his entire business plan.
I think that I understand why you consider this to be a “potentially dangerous device”, but the gas nozzles used at modern filling stations are all equipped with an automatic cutoff.
For that matter, a great majority of those already have a ‘hold open’ device integrated into the nozzle. At least, approx. 95%+ of the ones that I regularly use (here in Houston, Texas) have a ‘hold open’ capability, built in to them.
I understand one email from a random person probably won’t be enough, but any legal info would be a starting point… to get his selling venues to listen.
I don’t remember ever pumping gas where there wasn’t a way to hold open the pump handle built in. Are there some states or countries where this is disabled?
They’re illegal in MA and all the pumps here have had them removed. While there are automatic shutoffs they do sometimes malfunction.
When these automatic shut offs fail, thats where dangerous situations occur.
People who use these things,( or other devices they have at hand,) tend to do other things while their vehicle is filling.
Full attention needs to be given to the task at hand, when filling your vehicle.
I don’t know the laws of every state, but the reason self serve gas bars do not have the hold open clips on the nozzles, is to force the user to stay with the nozzle. Full serve gas bars use the nozzles with hold open clips to allow their staff to fill multiple vehicles at once…but they are also trained on emergency procedures, should a spill occur.
I’ve never found one in the UK, always happy to use them in the USA though.
Most US self-serve pumps do have hold-open clips. They are only illegal in a couple of states.
They are all disabled in Ontario. Seems to be Canadian law according to a pdf file I found on a Shell site, but I can’t find the specific law.
I do know that my pump has been turned off from the inside when I once tried to use the gas cap as a lever while cleaning my windows.
I’ve never been anywhere in the US where there aren’t clips on the pump handles. (That said, I’ve never been much east of Kansas either.)
I think the fact that these clips are on a very very high percentage of pumps, and that people in (say) Washington State aren’t blowing up on a daily basis, proves that they’re safe enough.
I’ve also, in 20+ years of filling vehicles, never seen, heard of, or experienced the “auto-cut-off” of a pump failing. (Usually it’s the opposite problem: it cuts off way too early.) I concede it’s possible, but I think you highly overestimate the probability of this happening.
Strange. I lived in the UK for 4 years, but don’t remember that. I was there around 1990. Of course I bought most of my petrol on the RAF Upper Heyford where I was stationed as fuel was much, much cheaper. Maybe they used US-style pumps there.
There are many localities that have strange self-serve rules, including states and cities where it’s not allowed (Oregon, New Jersey). Most now don’t prohibit self-serve and allow a latching nozzle, but if I go just north of the line to Massachoochoo, latches on nozzles are missing AND there are prominent signs that using any device to hold the nozzle open is a violation. I saw similar prohibitions across the US a few years ago.
I can’t imagine any law that would prevent a Gas Buddy from being manufactured, and think it would be farfetched to see their sale outlawed, but there are certainly locales that outlaw their use. I have seen station owner/attendants yell at people for wedging things into the handle, so it’s taken seriously.
Then again, so is the enormous risk of blowing up the station by using your cell phone while the gas pumps.
ETA: What’s odd is that the restrictions seem to be in the states most proud of their “freedom.”
We’ve got gas pump latches and 101 octane fuel. I feel like an outlaw… except it’s legal. :dubious:
I think your missing the point…
The nozzles themselves, either with or without the factory clips are safe to use.
But they are mechanical and do fail !
When you start altering their operation with other devices, thats when they become unsafe, especially in the hands of the untrained user.
I don’t see how that plastic wedge is doing anything different than the metal clip normally does. The metal clip doesn’t have any “emergency break-off” feature or anything-- it’s literally just a piece of metal on a hinge that folds up and holds the handle in place.
As for untrained users, as I said: the fact that millions and millions of untrained people are using these pumps every single day kind of proves they’re safe. How often do you see gas pump fires in the news? A couple times a year? For tens of thousands of pumps? … I’ll just take that risk.
I’m not sure where you’re from, but when I visit Oregon, even the locals there (heck, even the gas station attendants there) readily admit that the full-service law is a result of jobs protectionism, not safety. They just don’t see it as a big deal.
If millions and millions of people used these widgets every single day, I guarantee there would be more spills… more dangerous situations, more injuries, more fatalities.
Let me explain what happens during a fill up using a non altered nozzle…
When gas reaches the venturi ,( the small hole at the end of the spout) it breaks the vacuum and trips the internal valve, resulting in the metal hold open latch to release. But like I said, they are mechanical and do fail sometimes.
When you wedge a device in the nozzle, you are altering the normal operation.
Gas reaches the venturi, breaks the vacuum, but does not trip the internal valve properly because this thing is wedged in there…resulting in more spills…
All it would take is for it to happen to you once…Then you would change your tune.!
Millions and millions of people do use a lever-propping device every day. It’s pretty rare that I see a fuel dispenser without one built into it.
If you were wedging a device in the nozzle, that might be true. But the widget gets wedged in the lever, functioning exactly the same way that a built-in lever-propping device does. The automatic shutoff mechanism will perform just as it always did, whether the lever is being propped up by the widget, by the built-in prop, or by your fingers.
In my experience this is not the case. The internal valve cuts off no matter what the position of the handle. I can’t get more gas to flow even if I keep squeezing the handle.
I don’t think spilled gas is quite as dangerous as you think it is. A gas spill needs to be cleaned up, for sure, but it’s hardly an “OMG I SPILLED A LITRE EVERYBODY RUN!!!” situation.