No good deed goes unpunished

The BBQ Pit
21

XERXES – I think we’re talking about the same thing.

This is true, but gas vapor alone doesn’t cause a fire. The static electicity provides the spark, like the pilot light in the boats you’re talking about. Apparently the static electricity can spark off the metal nozzle of the gas pump, which in turn ignites the fumes in the truck bed – or in the gas can itself, or both. So I think we’re both explaining the same event. It’s just more suprising in a pick-up truck because – unlike being near an appliance with a pilot light – a lot of people wouldn’t think there’d be any way to ignite the gas vapor when you’re just filling up a gas can in the bed of your truck.

Off topic, but out of curiousity, do you call the back of the truck a “bed” in the UK?

22

Slight technical correction: it’s actually the flowing gasoline that carries the static charge. With a metal can touching the ground, the charge doesn’t accumulate as the can is filled, because the metal conducts it to the ground. If this conduction path is interrupted (for instance by a plastic container or by the can being in contact with an insulator like a plastic truck bed instead of the ground), the charge accumulates and is prone to spark, like when you touch a metal doorknob on a dry day. For this reason, the filler neck on your car is grounded to the frame by a wire unless there’s already a conduction path inherent in the design. I believe the same is true of the filler hose itself on the gas pump.

Even flowing water can carry a static charge. I’ve heard of some people trying to repair a leaky valve on a propane bottle, and they thought they were being safe by spraying it with a garden hose while they worked on it, and the static charge sparked and set off the bottle of gas. IIRC, one of the participants died of his burns.

23

Golly, I own a Chevy S-10 with a plastic bedliner, and a plastic gas can!

If I was a SDMB snob and poo-pooed the Pit and just lurked in GQ, someday I’d go up in flames, and the last though in my mind would be “there truly is a province of Southern Asia whose name is Swat.”

This thread may have saved the lives of all those Dopers who might car-pool with me to the Seattle Dopefest on April 21. Although, with enough of us dead, the board might save some bandwith. Choices, choices…

24

First off you can’t talk to people anymore.

These days just the attention getting line “excuse me” starts the smart Alec generator in the recipient’s brain.
It’s hard to say excuse me when followed with some advice, and not sound condescending. Listen to some others say it and note that nasty tone.

Not that you didn’t have the best intentions.

I have noticed when traveling the colder the climate gets geographically; the more likely people are to leave the vehicle running. I guess when you see others do it a few times and try it yourself it gets normal.

I may or may not turn the engine off it depends on if I am alone. When I have Mrs. waxteeeth & the little waxteeths with me I let the a/c run to keep them cool. I started doing this after a trip up north where I noticed everyone leaving the engine/heat on, and yes SMOKING while pumping gas.

I don’t smoke but if I did it would not be at a gas station.

I’ve been doing this for about 15 years and have not had a problem yet. I don’t think it is as dangerous as it seems otherwise more gas stations would blow up and or we would see strict enforcement of the rules.

As for that first part, if you were to “remind” me that my engine was running I would probably say thank you and turn it off.

25

::hauling on the flame-retardant longjohns::

These rules are strictly enforced in all the places I’ve lived in Canada; I have never, in 34 years, seen someone filling up with the engine running. Is filling up with the engine running more dangerous in Canada than in the U.S.? Doesn’t seem likely to me. Course, we wear seat belts here, too, but that’s a whole 'nother can of worms :smiley:

26

If no good deed goes unpunished, then no bad deed is irredeemable. I started a very minor Pit rant and it’s turned into a good discussion on the potential dangers of gas stations. We fought a little ignorance this week, and in the Pit of all places. Thank you all.

There are two kinds of 'excuse me’s. There’s the offended, confrontational, daytime-talk-show kind of ‘excuse me’, and the polite, may-I-get-your-attention-please kind. I was going for the latter.

27

Well. I seem to have missed the posts in this thread by a few days.

First off, Tsugumo, there’s a HUGE difference between smoking a cigarette while pumping gas and DELIBERATELY lighting a lighter directly above a pool of flammable cleaning fluid.

For the record, when I do smoke while refueling, it’s because I’ve just lit a cigarette and decided to stop to get gas. I do NOT light up while pumping.

Second, Blackclaw -

I don’t know where YOU are but here in Michigan, we refuel our cars OUTSIDE which tends to cause what fumes there are to dissipate before reaching my smoke in a high enough concentration to explode. Granted, there ARE times when there isn’t any breeze and yes, at these times I DON’T smoke while gassing up.

For anyone else I missed (I’m feeling kinda lazy right now) the reason I don’t pay attention to the signs is for the simple fact that every time I’ve seen a station employee out around the pumps, they’ve been smoking.

People, I’ve been working on vehicles and smoking at the same time, even when replacing gas tanks, for years both in the Military and in civilian life. I’m quite sure that there must have been some horrible accident that occurred when someone was refueling and both left their car running and were smoking at the same time.

As far as I’m concerned, it’s like the warning labels on some bags of nuts that read “remove shell before consuming”, in other words, to avoid potential lawsuits. In todays litigious society, I believe that the majority of warnings that we see are for this simple reason - to protect from lawsuits. I’ve seen a few things that I won’t go into detail about when I worked for attorneys and I can’t disagree with the rationale behind them. I just feel that there are WAY too many of them these days.

Now, I’m not saying that it’s a good idea to do this, I just don’t particularly think about it. Plus, when it’s 10 degrees below zero out and Mrs X and the young x-lings are in the car, I am not about to shut the damn thing off whilst I pump in gas.

Hey! Most of the time, I don’t even realize that I’m doing it. If someone were to say something about it, (which has never happened to me), then I’d be happy to lose the cigarette.

28

Xploder, I think another of the reasons why people aren’t supposed to smoke is to prevent them from absentmindedly tossing their butt on the ground, where the fumes are lurking or where the remnants of spilled gasoline might be. Even if people remind themselves not to throw out their butt, it is very easy to do something without thinking just from force of habit. I totally agree that many warning labels are only to protect from lawsuits but in this case, I think there’s a real danger from some person who’s not trying to be a jerk but just doesn’t think for a second.

Let’s say that you, Xploder, is 100% aware of the possible dangers and always guards against any possible mishaps (as you described in your post). Let’s assume that you never forget for a second and accidentally toss a cigarette on the ground. That’s all well and good, but other people see you smoking - other people who are not as cautious and aware as you - and think if you can do it, they can too. They think that if it’s not dangerous to smoke, then it must not be dangerous to light up either. That’s why the warning is up - not only to guard against the people who know all about the possible dangers but to ALSO protect the ones who, unbelievably, have no idea that gasoline can be any more dangerous than water.

I hope you continue to be lucky, for your own and your family’s sake as well as everyone else who happens to be around you at the gas station.

29

Well, I can count the times I’ve dropped my butt on the ground at my feet on one finger :smiley: Besides that, I’ve actually seen with my own two eyes what will happen when you drop a lit cigarette in a pool of gas. It goes out. I’ve seen this MANY, MANY times while in the Army and have NEVER seen gasoline or diesel fuel combust from it. If it were JP4 (jet fuel) it would be very different. The concentration of gas fumes in an outdoor environment are low enough that I’ve never seen any cause to worry about it.

As far as being lucky, I can just point to my wife and kids and say see? Yes, I am lucky. But when it comes to this issue, I really don’t see any real cause for alarm.

30

For the record, I did NOT mean to quote missbunny’s entire post!!!

Note to self yet again…preview is my friend!

31

Yes well this time it was just a misquoted post. Next time it could be a car’s petrol tank going up in a HUGE BALL OF FLAME!

Oh, Xploder, would it be so tough to just follow the rules?

Do you play hand-held computer games as the plane takes off too?

Someone who would like to is the man across the aisle from me on the flight to Sydney the other week. When the hostess (stewardess) asked him to stop he said “but it’s not a gameboy - it doesn’t have a floppy disc”.

Because he stopped in time I prevented myself from screaming at him “It can interfere with the plane’s navigational system and we could all fly into the ground and BE KILLED!!” But I was ready to. Love a good scream in public.

Rules. Learn’em, love 'em, live by 'em.

Ruleboss

32

Yeah, the guy was an asshole, but I completely understand!

First off, a cigarette butt being thrown to the ground isn’t going to blow the place up. Dropping a cigarette into a bucket of gas will go out. What you see in the movies is just false information, for added effect.

Second, a running car or electronics isn’t going to send you into a ball of flames either. Where do you get that exhaust fumes are going to blow your shit up? What comes out of there is carbon and water. And your engine is so far away from the pump that a spark just couldn’t reach it.

Now I agree that filling a can up into your pick em’ up can cause static to build up. But everything else goes.

As far as the warning signs go, well those are just there for protection against law suits.

33

Thank you Farmer. For everyone else who thinks I’m going to incinerate myself and others, well, :rolleyes:

34

Jodi said

I don’t know if it’s in common usage, but I guess we do, yes. I’ve certainly heard of a ‘flat-bed truck’ (a truck with no (or removable) sides)…

35

Grounding: When refueling aircraft, a static line is attached to the airframe from the truck or from the ground near the fuel pit. I’ve also seen linemen touch the nozzle to an unpainted metal part of the airframe (which does have the static line attached) to make sure there is no spark. There have been cases where a pilot has tried to put gas in the tanks from a plastic container, resulting in an explosion. City Gent is correct that the flowing fuel is what causes the static electricity.

Running engine: Turbine helicopters are routinely refueled while the engine is running. This is because jet engines are overhauled based (partly) on “cycles” and it’s cheaper to leave them running than it is to shut them down while fueling. Also, Jet-A or JP-4 is basically kerosene which is less volatile than gasoline.

See above.

Other rudeness: Tito’s Tacos is a popular taco stand on Washington and Sepulveda in Culver City (L.A.), California. There’s always a line, and it’s common to see several cars waiting for a parking space. The last time I went there I was waiting for a space. There were four or five other cars waiting as well. I noticed two guys eating their tacos on the bonnet of their truck. They looked at the people waiting, but kept eating. After about five minutes a space opened and I parked. As I walked by them I told them that other people were waiting for their space. One replied, “Yeah, I know,” and happily munched away. Don’t they and the other (two) people eating in their cars have the common courtesy to go eat somewhere else when there’s a line of cars waiting to park?

36

I actually meant jet fuel in general, which is NOT basically kerosine but a MUCH more refined TYPE of kerosine. From my experience in the military, the fumes from JP4 and JP8 as well as other jet fuels will ignite VERY easily. We had a guy that filled a camp stove with JP8 and ended up burning his tent down. Then again, it was a pretty crappy camp stove and the guy was a moron to boot.

While refueling Army vehicles, we NEVER shut them down. Even when filling the deuce and a halfs with JP4 because that was all we could get. Stupid in retrospect.

37

While jet fuel fumes will ignite, jet fuel is still less volatile than gasoline. We probably need Anthracite in here to give a more detailed answer as to how much more volatile it is. While gasoline can be burned in a jet engine, special attention must be paid to temperature, as gasoline can easily cause a jet engine to blow up.

I have a kerosene lantern that I fuel with Jet-A because it’s cheaper (free, drained from the sump of a fuel truck) than buying it at a sporting goods store ($7.99/gal.). It also works in my MSR camp stove.

38

I grew up in Philly. My brother and cousins, all of whom are truck-lovers, call the back storage area the “bed”. They also call the high-impact plastic inserts “bed liners”.

Hmph…maybe it’s true, Philly really is still a British Protectorate :smiley:

Cartooniverse

39

Here’s a link about the different types of fuels ranging from liquids to solids: http://www.howstuffworks.com/question105.htm

It says that gasoline will vaporize below the boiling point of water while kerosene will not. Both are Class B flammable liquids. as shown here: http://srd.yahoo.com/goo/"gasoline+kerosene"/15/*http://www.keysan.com/ksu0721.htm

This site: http://www.artoftravel.net/19cooking.htm says that kerosene is usually of such a low grade that filtering through a cloth is often necessary.

I stand corrected. Although I have seen JP8 flare ups before, that was due more to the incompetence of the person trying to use it than anything else.

One further note…according to this site: http://school.discovery.com/homeworkhelp/worldbook/atozscience/k/298180.html Military aircraft use a mixture of kerosene and gasoline.

40

That is, “how much more volatile gasoline is”.

FWIW, there have been crashes after gasoline-pwered aircraft have been mistakenly fueled with jet fuel. The reciprocating engines don’t do very well when you try to run kerosene in them.

[quote]
http://www.aopa.org/pilot/features/mos9702.html
Some fuel-related aircraft accidents stem from a more serious problem. A few years ago in Texas, an inattentive line attendant and an equally oblivious pilot allowed a Cessna to be filled with jet fuel. Just after takeoff the engine quit, and all on board were killed in the ensuing forced landing. Witnesses stated that before the flight the pilot had quickly taken a fuel sample, looked at it, and thrown it out. It’s likely that the pilot was looking for water but neglected to see what kind of fuel the water was in. When taking fuel samples look at the fuel – is it the right color? Jet fuel is clear, 100LL is blue, and 80 octane is pink. Mixtures of 100 and 80 will be clear, so be careful. Does it smell right? Jet fuel is essentially kerosene and has the same odor. Rub it between your fingers; if there’s jet fuel mixed in, it will leave an oily film.