It’s also true that dropping something made of steel entails a small chance of a spark.
Probably for the same reason it says “contents is hot” on your paper coffee cup
Like ignition coils? That’s one guaranteed honker-toad of a spark every single time you turn the key.
I don’t know if this was covered in the snopes link, but I recall seeing a 60-minutes style program that came to the conclusion that the spark was the result of the motorist getting out to fuel-up, then sliding back into the car to answer the phone. Then sliding back out to put the pump handle back. All of this sliding in & out of the car cause a significant static charge to build up on the motorist, which was discharged the moment the motorist reached for something metal - the pump handle. Apparently the mixture of fuel vapors and air at that spot is just about perfect for spark ignition.
I suspect the cell phone company cationing is just another layer of lawsuit-proofing.
No, my paper coffee cups are grammatically correct.
Just a thought - Are pump nozzles insulated in any way? Would it be safer if they were made out of plastic or something? If we are catering for those one in a billion chances…
Where is the spark? Inside the engine cylinders and the distributor? I think the concern is about exposed sparks.
That was Mythbusters, they did a pretty good job with that one. What interested me was the part where they had a firefighter in protective gear simulate what happens. When the nozzle was left in the car after flaming up it just died out; when the nozzle was pulled out quickly the firefighter was engulfed in flames. They mentioned that it mostly happens to women because their pantyhose creates a static build-up when sliding over the seat and they are more likely than men to get back in the vehicle while refueling.
There is an even bigger bigger reason.
Hospitals make a lot of money from charges for the phones in the rooms. If everybody just used their cell phone, the hospital doesn’t get that money.
I think the gas station rule is has it’s roots in experience with higher powered transmitters in cars. I used to play around with ham radio and sparks are certainly possible if you’re transmitting with reasonably high power. If I had a 100 watt transmitter in my car, there is no way that I would want to transmit while filling the car at a gas station. That would be foolish. When cell phones came along, the first ones were properly installed in the car with an external antenna, usually on the back window so they looked like any other mobile radio. The low power handhelds of today seem unlikely to be a problem. Someone mentioned dropping it and making a spark. That seems more of a risk than the radiation from it.
The radiation can certainly affect sensitive electronics like in a hospital. If the equipment is well designed then it should be immune but I guess if it’s literally a life and death situation then it’s best to be careful. Distance from the equipment has a big affect on how much of a problem it is. Inverse square law means that if your phone is, say, 2 meters away from something then the radiation is only 1/400 of that if you held the phone only 10cm away.
They do?
Sadly, yes. You’d think this would surely be exceedingly rare - and perhaps even self-correcting. But I see a smoker pumping petrol at least a once a month.
Another puzzling and all-too-common sight is someone filling the tank of a car that’s running. This surely is far more dangerous than using a cellphone (which I continue to believe has never been documented as a problem), but you do see it.
These items are called Intrinsicly safe electronics, and are certified as such. Back in the early/mid 90’s I sold pagers, and occasionally had customers that needed pagers that were certified so.
Top Gear all but created a fuel dump around a mobile phone and it STILL didn’t explode the fuel vapour.
I have never seen either of these things. All gas stations prominently feature signs barring smoking and requiring you to shut your engine off when fueling, and I haven’t seen anyone disregarding these signs. I’m guessing – based on your use of “forecourt” and “petrol” – that you’re in the United Kingdom. I suspect if someone tried to do that over here, the station attendant would come over and tell them to stop.