Mobile phones / radio's in petrol stations
Discussion
we have all seen the notices .. "No Mobile Phones or other radio transmitting equipment" to be used on forecorts.
Just been to Tesco's when a police van, fully laden with about 9 boys in Blue stops to put fuel in. all of them have radio's on, the driver is in the que to sign his fuel card slip and his radio goes off.. Not a murmer .. if my mobile phone rings ( as I have seen others do ) you get a right telling off from the clerk.
Are police radio's certified sealed against vapour ?
Bloody double standards.
Just been to Tesco's when a police van, fully laden with about 9 boys in Blue stops to put fuel in. all of them have radio's on, the driver is in the que to sign his fuel card slip and his radio goes off.. Not a murmer .. if my mobile phone rings ( as I have seen others do ) you get a right telling off from the clerk.
Are police radio's certified sealed against vapour ?
Bloody double standards.
jvaughan said:
we have all seen the notices .. "No Mobile Phones or other radio transmitting equipment" to be used on forecorts.
Just been to Tesco's when a police van, fully laden with about 9 boys in Blue stops to put fuel in. all of them have radio's on, the driver is in the que to sign his fuel card slip and his radio goes off.. Not a murmer .. if my mobile phone rings ( as I have seen others do ) you get a right telling off from the clerk.
Are police radio's certified sealed against vapour ?
Bloody double standards.
Given that your 25,000 volt HT cct designed to creat *sparks* is safe on a petrol forecourt I doubt a mobile does any harm at all!
Relax!
Alan420 said:
Last year 16 explosions on european forecourts were attributed directly to mobile phones.
Complete and utter bollox. With all due respect
www.snopes.com/autos/hazards/gasvapor.asp
Size Nine Elm said:
Last year 16 explosions on european forecourts were attributed directly to mobile phones.
Complete and utter bollox. With all due respect
www.snopes.com/autos/hazards/gasvapor.asp
Shame about snopes, I used to believce what they said. In this case they are wrong.
Trust me, I was working as a forecourt engineer for one of the big three firms at the time.
toad_oftoadhall said:
Last year 16 explosions on european forecourts were attributed directly to mobile phones.
Let's have some details then!
When and where?
Sadly my memory has failed me, I just remember that the report came from one of our competitors and re-sparked (if you'll forgive the pun) the debate on the devices within the industry.
It was found that most of the cases occurred when the victim was standing directly next to the fuel cap (i.e. holding the nozzle) and the phone rang.
When I left the company we still had no real explanation why this happens.
Alan420 said:
Shame about snopes, I used to believce what they said. In this case they are wrong.
Trust me, I was working as a forecourt engineer for one of the big three firms at the time.
Many a rumour has run out of control and taken in bigger fish than you would imagine. The posting of warnings about mobile phones/sparks/forecourt fires is just such a rumour.
To the contrary, can you provide any evidence of such an explosion event? News report, etc? Otherwise I'm more inclined to believe the snopes analysis...
Edited to add: I think the forecourt warnings were placed in the face of the rumours since if they had turned out to be true the oil companies would have had a huge liability problem. Doesn't mean it was true, though.
>> Edited by Size Nine Elm on Thursday 24th July 16:38
Size Nine Elm said:
Complete and utter bollox. With all due respect
www.snopes.com/autos/hazards/gasvapor.asp
Having now read some of the article I believe it to be ill founded.
If fires on forecourts made even the local news we'd be flooded with them, it just isn't worth talking about.
I admit a mobile setting off a fire on a forecourt is highly unlikely, but it's not as remote a chance as you'd think.
I won't bore you with the reasons, but I'd feel happier waving a blowtorch around near a pump than filling with a phone in my pocket.
Alan420 said:
Alan420 said:
Last year 16 explosions on european forecourts were attributed directly to mobile phones.
Let's have some details then!
When and where?
Sadly my memory has failed me, I just remember that the report came from one of our competitors and re-sparked (if you'll forgive the pun) the debate on the devices within the industry.
It was found that most of the cases occurred when the victim was standing directly next to the fuel cap (i.e. holding the nozzle) and the phone rang.
When I left the company we still had no real explanation why this happens.
i thought the fear was that the motor for the vibrating alert could generate sparks and that the combination of the phone in you pocket next to the filler neck and fuel vapour leaving did the rest?
Size Nine Elm said:
Shame about snopes, I used to believce what they said. In this case they are wrong.
Trust me, I was working as a forecourt engineer for one of the big three firms at the time.
Many a rumour has run out of control and taken in bigger fish than you would imagine. The posting of warnings about mobile phones/sparks/forecourt fires is just such a rumour.
To the contrary, can you provide any evidence of such an explosion event? News report, etc? Otherwise I'm more inclined to believe the snopes analysis...
Edited to add: I think the forecourt warnings were placed in the face of the rumours since if they had turned out to be true the oil companies would have had a huge liability problem. Doesn't mean it was true, though.
>> Edited by Size Nine Elm on Thursday 24th July 16:38
As I posted above, I had a report delivered to my desk, subsequently confirmed by the Institute of pertoleum, saying that these fires occur.
There is no way on earth that a large company would send such a report to its competitors for no reason.
Anyway, most of what you hear in the news is utter
The sun s*it a brick about our mobile masts, when, as I said above, they are utterly harmless (well, no more harmful than National Grid overhead power lines).
Alan420 said:
If fires on forecourts made even the local news we'd be flooded with them, it just isn't worth talking about.
On the contrary, if you also read the snopes article on static-related forecourt fires (www.snopes.com/autos/hazards/static.asp) they found much evidence of forecourt fires - and did some research into it.
Alan420 said:
As I posted above, I had a report delivered to my desk, subsequently confirmed by the Institute of pertoleum, saying that these fires occur.
But this dossier was probably culled off the internet, same as the Snopes report, and then someone decided it should be sexed up for effect.
Oh, where are my painkillers and Stanley knife...
paolow said:
i thought the fear was that the motor for the vibrating alert could generate sparks and that the combination of the phone in you pocket next to the filler neck and fuel vapour leaving did the rest?
They looked into that. I believe the finding was that mobiles do hold enough power for this to occur, but it's VERY unlikely.
Upshot is, we just don't know.
All I can say is I trust the source that gave me the report, but no doubt so do the folk who make the handsets when they recieve a contrary report.
My advice remains: DONT RISK IT.
Size Nine Elm said:
As I posted above, I had a report delivered to my desk, subsequently confirmed by the Institute of pertoleum, saying that these fires occur.
But this dossier was probably culled off the internet, same as the Snopes report, and then someone decided it should be sexed up for effect.
Oh, where are my painkillers and Stanley knife...
The report I recived puported to be directly from the company who had suffered from the fires.
It is possible it was a hoax, but it was a pretty good attempt if so!
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