I just got a very bizarre email from my Dad that has been distributed to all the doctors in the company he works for. This email states that women are more likely to catch fire while pumping gas/petrol.
The reason for this is as follows:
This sounds very strange, I can’t understand why anyone would WANT to get back into a car while pumping gas/petrol.
Further info in the email seemed to indicated that it women are more likely to wear high static clothing than men and less likely to wear rubber soled shoes.
In my neighborhood, today’s high temp was around 5 F, about -12 or -15 C. With a 40 mph wind. Does that explain anything? IT’S COLD!!!
That said - papa always taught me never to leave the gas nozzle unattended. If you’re foolish enough not to dress for the weather go to a full serve station.
I’d think it odd that the stats are so strongly skewed… sounds like urban legend at least to some degree to me.
I seriously doubt it. I work at a Stop-N-Rob and people get in their cars while allowing the pump to fill up their tank (Why? Because it’s cold outside!) and I’ve yet to see anyone explode.
I’ve read news reports on cnn.com last year when a woman in Texas caught on fire doing just that.
If you live in the US, you might have noticed that most gas pumps now have little warning labels advising you NOT to get back in your car while pumping gas.
According to the cnn articles, most incidents happen in winter when it’s coooooolllddd… hence, the tendency for the *wimin[/i
] to get back in the car.
All the pumps I’ve seen of late have had the retention clip removed so that it’s impossible to pump unattended. The gas stations had a sign up for a while saying they’d done it to reduce the incidence of overflow and spilling.
Interesting info there - thanks for taking the time to respond. I’m glad I don’t live in a cold climate. Still if your freezing I can understand the desire to keep warm, and how better than with a nice toasty car fire
Full service stations?! I haven’t seen one of them for almost a decade, except when I went to Oregon and was shocked to be told I wasn’t allowed to pump my own gas.
Where on earth do they still have these relics of a bygone era?
And you damn betcha I’m getting back in my car. It’s cold out there! Plus, sometimes unsavory persons show up and you feel uncomfortable standing outside.
It is illegal in my home state of New Jersey to pump your own gas. ALL gas stations here are full service. “Full service” apparently being pumping the gas, and looking rather puzzled at any other requests, such as checking the oil or tire pressure.
Lordy Lordy, how long does it take you to fill a gas tank? Three minutes?
When handling explosive, flammable liquid that can maim and kill you, play it safe. Don’t leave it unattended even if it means you’ll be cold for three minutes. Screwing around with gasoline is a good way to spend more time in your local burn ward.
It’s a New York State winter, and there’s no latch on the gas handle? You have to hold the cold metal with your hand the whole time? Someone is nuts.
Snopes says there are 16 billion gas-pumpings into cars a year, and the causes of fires are static, open flames, and leaving your motor running. And areas that have the hoses suck up the vapors are pretty much proof against vapor fires.
And, the real study does NOT say that most of those involved are women.
But, if you have to hold that freezing handle in the freezing wind while pumping…well maybe I’ll get my SO to pump my gas in those areas. …I wonder if it was a woman that originated that warning e-mail. A sneaky one.
Gosh - here, you can’t even fill up your own car if you want to.
In summer especially, people don’t even switch their engine off so they can keep the AC going. They just open the driver window a tiny tiny chink to tell the guy how much petrol they want, and what sort, then close it up. Reopen it to slip the money through, and begone!
SOME of the details? After reading the SNOPES take on the information, looks like the great majority of the “details” in the report cited in the OP have been skewed or blatently fabricated. The gender of the person was never taken into account, the type of footwear the person was wearing was seldom questioned, whether or not the person got back into his or her car barely made a difference in the number of cases resulting in fire, and cell phones were clearly stated to NOT be a factor in the actual study.
