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I was once told by an electrical engineer that the whole ban on using a cell phone near a pump was due to potential interference with how the dispenser tracks h
by dwd 6y ago
I was once told by an electrical engineer that the whole ban on using a cell phone near a pump was due to potential interference with how the dispenser tracks how much you have pumped.
Is there any truth this?
- dsshanley 6y agoI don’t think that’s the main concern. I worked on offshore platforms and the devices needed to be class 1 div 2 compliant. Meaning they need to be sealed completely to avoid vapors being sparked by electrical devices. It’s a small risk, but gasoline vapor is very combustible.
- anon_cow1111 6y agoThis might have been true historically, but samsung has since released the Galaxy Note 7.
- PrinceKropotkin 6y agoSorry? What do you mean? What's the relevance of the galaxy note 7?
- ClumsyPilot 6y agoOnce in a blue moon even a dog shoots his owner, or a person is born with two genitals.
- taneq 6y agoThey seem pretty capable of exploding in your pocket and starting a fire at the petrol station. No need to be talking on it at the time.
- santraginean 6y agoWhat I read back when the bans were lifted around here was that cell phone use correlated with people opening the car door and rummaging around, which created a static electricity buildup, and that that was the real fire risk.
- bluedino 6y agoYou’re supposed to ground yourself by touching your vehicles before the gas pump Source: workplace safety videos I was forced to watch, years ago
- davrosthedalek 6y agoI'm not sure vehicles on rubber tires are particularly well grounded.
- userbinator 6y ago"grounding" in this case refers to equalising the potential difference.
- dredmorbius 6y agoYou are.
- myself248 6y agoNormal tires have carbon added to the rubber to make them slightly conductive, enough to drain static. Specialty tires like you find on drag cars do not. This is why you also see grounding straps dangling from drag cars -- to keep the driver from getting a shock when they step out after a run.
- TwoBit 6y agoAs if anybody is going to remember that.
- taneq 6y agoThese days the filler tube on the car is made of plastic so it's less important. I did get yelled at for not putting a (plastic) fuel container on the ground "to ground it" before filling it, so the rituals persist even when the root cause has been resolved.
- santraginean 6y agoAbsolutely, yeah, you’re supposed to! People don’t, though, hence the (still small) fire risk.
- btbuildem 6y agoI wouldn't be surprised it was to discourage distractions while fuelling up. You know, for the types that tend to drive off with the dispenser nozzle still in the tank.
- jcrawfordor 6y agoThe situation is a bit complicated. From having done a moderate amount of research over years, there are basically two answers: 1) Signs that you should not use a cell phone at a gas pump are largely a result of a string of incidents in the '90s in which gas station fires occurred when the operator was using a cell phone. Causation was assumed and the warning decals were put on pumps. Later research by the Petroleum Energy Institute, an industry group, did not find any incidents that were actually caused by cell phones. The correlation may be due to a confounding factor, that people talking on cell phones are more likely to get in/out of their vehicle while pumping which could cause a static discharge. The PEI reports that, in general, improvements in vapor management in vehicles and fuel dispensers makes the risk of static discharge causing a fire low at modern gas stations. 2) General industrial best practice, and various safety regulations which are influential but not necessarily applicable to consumer gas stations, prohibit the use of electronic devices near flammable substances unless those devices are certified to be safe for that use. While many cell phones are probably "intrinsically safe" (do not involve potentials high enough to reasonably produce a spark), few are actually verified to that standard by the manufacturer (would need to be labelled "intrinsically safe" by the manufacturer following their safety analysis). In a safety-regulated environment they would thus be prohibited out of an excess of caution. On the balance it seems likely that cell phone use at the fuel dispenser is probably not a hazard, but it never hurts to minimize distractions and extra factors when handling something potentially explosive.
- dannyw 6y agoFurthermore the cost is low: 60 seconds of not using your phone isn’t a big deal. If you’re calling someone, put them on hold.
- gregoriol 6y agoDo you actually live in 2020?
- sischoel 6y agoI once had a stopover on a flight and was told that I was not allowed to use my phone in the plane as they where currently refueling. I am still skeptical if my phone would really be able to cause some hazard.