mobile phone's igniting fuel.......

omegas

Guest
Cell Phone Warning!
You may not be aware of a recent incident where a motorist suffered severe burns when his cell phone ignited gasoline fumes at a gas station.
"Read your handbook!" manufacturers warn. Motorola, Ericsson, and Nokia all print cautions in their user handbooks that warn against using mobile phones near gas stations, fuel storage sites, chemical refineries, and nuclear reactors.

Electronic devices at gas stations are protected with explosive containment devices, making them safe to use around volatile hydrocarbons. Cell phones, on the other hand, and other high-voltage battery appliances, are not shielded. They are in clear danger of producing small sparks.

Exxon has begun to place warning stickers on its gasoline pumps. All I can say is, finally! A solution to the obnoxious cell phone driver problem!
 
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yes there is a strong posibility of a mobile phone causing a fire at the pumps i know when i was a saftey officer at the mine i worked at you was not allowed to even take a battery powerd watch down the mine due to the chance it could ignite the methane gas all electrical items used were seald i do beleive it is what is called intrinsicaly safe special seals are used to stop the vapors entering the equipment used just a nother thing i saw one of our local law enforcement officers using a mobile phone whilst driving the other day hows that for upholding the law
 
omegas said:
Cell Phone Warning!
You may not be aware of a recent incident where a motorist suffered severe burns when his cell phone ignited gasoline fumes at a gas station.
"Read your handbook!" manufacturers warn. Motorola, Ericsson, and Nokia all print cautions in their user handbooks that warn against using mobile phones near gas stations, fuel storage sites, chemical refineries, and nuclear reactors.

Electronic devices at gas stations are protected with explosive containment devices, making them safe to use around volatile hydrocarbons. Cell phones, on the other hand, and other high-voltage battery appliances, are not shielded. They are in clear danger of producing small sparks.

Exxon has begun to place warning stickers on its gasoline pumps. All I can say is, finally! A solution to the obnoxious cell phone driver problem!


janet & john :eek:
Click to expand...
there have been signs and notices on petrol pumps for years, wo betide anyone who ignores warnings
 
omegas said:
Cell Phone Warning!
You may not be aware of a recent incident where a motorist suffered severe burns when his cell phone ignited gasoline fumes at a gas station.
"Read your handbook!" manufacturers warn. Motorola, Ericsson, and Nokia all print cautions in their user handbooks that warn against using mobile phones near gas stations, fuel storage sites, chemical refineries, and nuclear reactors.

Electronic devices at gas stations are protected with explosive containment devices, making them safe to use around volatile hydrocarbons. Cell phones, on the other hand, and other high-voltage battery appliances, are not shielded. They are in clear danger of producing small sparks.

Exxon has begun to place warning stickers on its gasoline pumps. All I can say is, finally! A solution to the obnoxious cell phone driver problem!


janet & john :eek:
Click to expand...

See http://www.snopes.com/autos/hazards/gasvapor.asp
Story goes by to 1999 at least, and I note the quote is the direct one from Snopes.
For information neither my Nokia Communicator or Sony Ericsson P910i handbook carry any such warning...the nearest is a general recommendation not to "use your product in an enclosed area where a potentially explosive atmosphere exists".
Neither mention "fuel storage sites, chemical refineries, and nuclear reactors.
"
 
omegas said:
was emailed this today

trying to help fellow fuel fillers,thought it twas genuine especially as all petrol stations have warning signs.....:eek:

janet & john :eek:
Click to expand...
Apologies if my reply seemed abrupt! Snopes is well worth a look for similar emails.
Basic rule is that firms like Microsoft do not issue emails for general information but work through their own security websites (MS. Update) and that these stories can rarely, if ever, be traced to a genuine incident..place..time..details on public record.
Equally operating manuals seem never to carry the message claimed.
 
It's an "Urban Myth". It's also on Hoaxslayer.
You'll have to excuse me because I'm in a bit of rush; I've left the Poodle drying in the Microwave
 
Yeah mythbusters on discovery tried it and it did not work they had phones in a chamber with petrol vapour spraying in it and it did not ignite .And Richard Hammond did it on brainiac with a caravan full of petrol and full of mobile phones ..
so its busted .

but on a similar note when i was a kid and cb radio came out i heard the same thing but i think a cb radio might ignite petrol as your body work is the ground plane and a spark could jump from filler neck to metal pump nozzel so is it a myth ?


Mike
 
New York Times warned of the serious dangers of radio waves passing through the human body after this event...we still seem to be surviving..
"The first extended broadcast of the human voice was transmitted through the air on December 24, 1906 from Brant Rock, Massachusetts. A Canadian engineer, Reginald Fessenden, had worked for Thomas Edison in his New Jersey Laboratory, and later became a professor at the University of Pittsburgh.

Fessenden was convinced that the "wireless", which then carried only the sputtering dots and dashes of Morse code, could carry the human voice. The only use for wireless at that time was communication with ships at sea. The shipboard wireless operators were called "Sparks."

An account by Fessenden's wife Helen reports the transmission, as the Sparks on ships across the Atlantic heard what they had dreamed about and not thought possible.

"...a human voice coming from their instruments - someone speaking... Then a women's voice rose in song. It was uncanny! Many of them called their officers to come and listen; soon the wireless rooms were crowded. Next someone was heard reading a poem. Then there was a violin solo; then a man made a speech."

The broadcast historian Eric Barnouw reports that Fessenden himself played Gounod's "O, Holy Night" on the violin. He also read from the Christmas story from the Bible book of Luke and played a phonograph recording of Handel's "Largo."
 
mikejay said:
Yeah mythbusters on discovery tried it and it did not work they had phones in a chamber with petrol vapour spraying in it and it did not ignite .And Richard Hammond did it on brainiac with a caravan full of petrol and full of mobile phones ..
so its busted .

but on a similar note when i was a kid and cb radio came out i heard the same thing but i think a cb radio might ignite petrol as your body work is the ground plane and a spark could jump from filler neck to metal pump nozzel so is it a myth ?


Mike
Click to expand...
Oh yes the radio ground plane effect is another myth. In the summer have you ever got out your car and and recived an impresive static discharge that makes you jump and mutter. That discharge is greater than a CB can deliver but has not yet blown up a petrol station.

Firefly
 
Another scenario that the mythbusters might like to test is if the phone was dropped to the concrete, the battery was severely damaged, shorted out and exploded -- AND there happened to be a pool of petrol just near it.

Yes, unlikely.

Static electricity is another recognised hazard and there are signs here about the right way to avoid discharges, but if it was a real hazard, why don't they have spring loaded earthing probed mounted on the driveway to discharge static as the car drives in.

Then there is the solenoid operated filler lid release, the courtesy light switches on the doors, boot light switches -- all NON-intrinsically safe and all well within the zone 1 volume around the filler pump, yet no recorded incidents of vapours being ignited.
 
pulled into a garage in cyprus mountains
owner was filling the car up while smoking a fag
we watched from a distance
 
Ok I'll bite into the "myth" of the dangers of mobile phones, CB radios, etc etc.

I used to work in the fuel tanker business and it was a sacking offence - immediate, do not pass go, etc. to leave a phone, CB or HF radio on (even those little pagers that used to be popular were a no no), when entering a fuel company loading depot or whilst unloading the fuel.

The only electrical devices that were allowed to be used were those that were electrically safe to be used inside a flammable zone - ie an area where there might be vapours in the explosive range (petrol 1.5% to about 6.5% vapour : air mix). These devices get a very thorough testing before being classified and approved.

Mobile phones have a variety of contacts which can arc, keypads, ringer, battery contacts. Many car phones used to be hooked up to the horn as well. They can also cause the person using the phone to become electrically charged with static electricity which will then arc across to the vehicle as the nozzle is inserted into the car, at the point where vapours are escaping from the car.

The other problem with some mobiles that do not comply with the power up standards is that when turned on they go to full power and if close to other electrical devices can cause some interferance, arcing, metal to metal arcing - same reason why you cant use mobiles on a plane.

The Mythbuster explosion tests on TV are all flawed as they overfuel them - you actually need less fuel and more air for the rapid explosion to occur. Its just like a car - too rich and it wont run, too lean and it wont run, get the mix right and you get the strong explosion that you need. Part of our driver training would include a tube with a cork in one end and a spark plug in the other, 3 drops of fuel and bang the cork would fly out, 10 drops of fuel and the spark plug just buzzed away.

The risk at a service station is that if there is a small fire at the filler on the car, the usual reaction of the person filling is to withdraw the nozzle (still pumping of course) which then causes the fire to get a lot bigger, engulfs the car and eventually the servo. The reason behind the rules - PREVENTION - its far better to stop a problem than fix it up afterwards.

Oil companies have worldwide experience and have the ability to review safety related incidents and often cooperate amongst themselves to ensure that the industry is safer than most that handle dangerous goods. For example the introduction of vapour recovery commenced in the USA in the mid 1980s when it became apparent that fuel company employees who as part of their jobs were inhaling vapours were not surviving long into retirement. Drivers were exposed due to open hatch top loading where they stood above the tanker and were breathing vapours for anything upto 3 hours per shift. The engineering gradually replaced top loading with bottom loading and the vapours were recovered and piped back to the storage tanks. Most petrol stations now have vapour recovery on their forecourts, vapour from the underground tanks is passed back into the road tanker when it makes a delivery. Most countries now (outside of the third world) have vapour recovery as a matter of course.
 
A CB has an output of 4 watts and that won't cause a spark if you short the steel aerial out, so as mobiles all now have an internal aerial and output a LOT less power I would say NO CHANCE!!

Now an amatuer radio with an output of 100w is another matter, we have got a small strip light tube to glow by holding it next to a 7/8 wave antenna which has a very focused output, but again didn't find any sparks etc.

Anyone ever looked under the bonnet of their car in the dark whilst suffering a mis-fire with the old rubber/carbon fibre plug leads? Blue sparks and flashes running up and down the leads... and still no explosion when filling up with fuel!!

It's a load of tosh!!!!!!! There was a similar report of mobiles disrupting machinery in hospitals... Northampton General hospital admitted it was a ploy to get people to switch of their mobile and use the expensive 'house' phones!!
 
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