Cellphones @ the gas pump bad combo?

My favorite debunking source snopes.com says not.

In all seriousness….a couple years ago I was pumping gas while talking on my phone and the cashier came out and had a flippin’ fit. Something to the effect of, “Get off that #^!!# thing before you blow yourself up!” I still haven’t seen any “NO CELL PHONES” signs at a single pump though. If it’s true, they might think about hanging a few. lol

I saw someone today pumping gas while on a cell phone. And I did see a sign that said, do not use cell phones while at gas station. Bottomline, calls can wait.

Someone needs to watch mythbusters :)

It was busted on that show

Well here’s a video about how it is possible.

Not only that, on a different episode Mythbusters found it almost impossible to cause a gas tank in a car to explode. It will burn, but it takes a very specific concentration of evaporated gas and air to cause an explosion.

@xyzzy, the thing I hear the most is that the frequency that is made by the cell phone by connecting to the cell nodes does something to the metal to create some sort of electric charge to set off the gas in the tank, not the gas in the air.

@xxporkxsodaxx , I was referring to gas in the tank. For the tank to explode, it must be only partially filled, with the remaining space in the tank containing a very specific evaporated fuel to air ratio. Otherwise you just get burning flames.

Oh I see, well burning flames are still pretty bad because the first thing people do is pull it out of the tank and then get it all over the car, and then all over the pumps, leading to a massive fire.

nah.
smoking on the other hand…

That was a myth totally busted. Mythbusters FTW