California Follies–Part MMCCLVIII

So the California state fire marshall has decreed that a certain kind of gas pump handle latch can no longer be used and, instead of allowing the stations that use it to have time to get replacements, they must all remove them at once!

This is, in theory, supposed to be for safety reasons and prevent gas spills or something.

Personally, I suspect that this will actually result in a more dangerous situation as people try improvised solutions to the problem.

Like this one . . .

Photo

Author: Jimmy Akin

Jimmy was born in Texas, grew up nominally Protestant, but at age 20 experienced a profound conversion to Christ. Planning on becoming a Protestant seminary professor, he started an intensive study of the Bible. But the more he immersed himself in Scripture the more he found to support the Catholic faith, and in 1992 he entered the Catholic Church. His conversion story, "A Triumph and a Tragedy," is published in Surprised by Truth. Besides being an author, Jimmy is the Senior Apologist at Catholic Answers, a contributing editor to Catholic Answers Magazine, and a weekly guest on "Catholic Answers Live."

12 thoughts on “California Follies–Part MMCCLVIII”

  1. The worst thing is that those gas station owners, already hurting through the crisis (owners, from what I’ve heard, do NOT make a lot of money on the gas they sell, and price flucuations can even have them lose considerable money between the time they buy the gas and the time they sell), and now this means that these owners are probably going to have to raise their prices to pass on the costs of these changes.

  3. The great province of Ontario, Canada has already banned those pesky little latches that allow us to set the pump to a preset level.
    This picture is EXACTLY what some of us do while the gas is pumping so we can check oil or clean the windows instead of sitting there watching the advertisements they force on us now that we aren’t supposed to otherwise leave the pump.
    I’ll have to try the cell phone idea!

  5. Marc,
    FYI, I think that the cell phone idea was a joke, because supposedly it is a fire hazard to use a cell phone near a gas pump. (I guess maybe the phone could generate a spark or something?)

  7. Actually, the cell phone itself isn’t the problem, the problem is the lithium battery. Lithium batteries release hydrogen gas when wet, and hydrogen is VERY flammable. How would a cell phone battery get wet? Well, if your palm’s just slightly sweaty…

  8. Hello Jimmy,
    You are spot on. I am ashamed to say that I did exactly what you predicted a few months ago with exactly the result you described. My Safeway had removed the latches (they’re back now) and it really annoyed me. After a few times grousing about it, I struck upon the BRILLIANT idea of lodging a pen in the handle. Worked great, until I decided it was time to disengage and I pulled the pen out, leaving the cap still lodged in the handle. So then gas is gushing out of my van and I pull the nozzle out, spilling several gallons of gas on the cement. I finally got it off and notified the attendant so that the gas could be cleaned up, but I had the shakes the rest of the day because of how dangerous the situation was. One spark and my van could have gone up. Glad you posted the gas cap picture. Seems a better solution than mine. 🙂

  9. I wrote a long post on why it is very difficult to start a fire using a lithium battery either with gasoline or sweat, but it never showed up. I am sure the science was correct. Did it get deleted or lost in the wild Internet? I even had equations and calculations, sniff…
    Sweat produces insufficient hydrogen and the sparking of cell phones at gas stations is an urban myth.
    The Chicken

  10. Just be happy you don’t live in Oregon. Lat time I was there they don’t even let you pump your own gas. I thought the manager was going to call the swat team when I was trying to figure out how to get the pump going.

  11. How many gas pump fires did it take for the fire marshall to realize that this was a problem that couldn’t wait for a solution?
    TMC, back in the 90s I found an article discussing a study Motorola did trying to track down instances of fires caused by cell phones, in an attempt to gauge the practical risk (contrasted with whatever they might determine in a lab). They couldn’t find a single verifiable case. Granted, it was a cell phone manufacturer, but I’d be willing to give them the benefit of the doubt over an urban myth.

Comments are closed.