Accessory Mode While Pumping Gas

If I were running an organization of near-unemployables who have been taught not to think, I'd make fascist iron-clad rules also. At any rate, strict rules didn't do much to prevent the fire on the USS Forrestal.

In case you missed the point of my rant, the solution is not to make it easier not to think; it's requiring people to do more thinking. Risk-assessment is the job of everyone, not just the rule-makers.

 

Not trying to pile on Greg, but you're the one seemingly bragging about not turning off your car. And it just makes me wonder what and how many other rules don't apply to you. Seriously though, living in Arizona, I can appreciate climate control, but I'm barely out of the car long enough putting in less than 10 gallons per fill-up to have the car warm up enough to get uncomfortable.

 

No bragging, just being honest. But it does help illustrate my point about risk-avoidance vs. risk-assessment. See my rant above for a better explanation.

I'd like to meet one other person in this forum who thinks we're headed down the wrong road by making a mountain of rules that no one can ever follow, in order to protect us from ourselves, just to avoid thinking for ourselves.

No bragging, just being honest. But it does help illustrate my point about risk-avoidance vs. risk-assessment. See my rant above for a better explanation.

I'd like to meet one other person in this forum who thinks we're headed down the wrong road by making a mountain of rules that no one can ever follow, in order to protect us from ourselves, just to avoid thinking for ourselves.

I guess my best evidence that I think I'm on the right track, is the fact that I have a perfect safety record, and I've never caused a traffic accident.

Paradigms can be a hard nut to crack, but I'm sure this is the way to make things safer for everyone. It's counter-intuitive to have fewer rules, but if that makes us think more about the risks, and prepare and plan for them, it's actually an improvement.

 

I'd be one. But the point is that too many people don't think and even if they do, they're putting others at risk by assuming they know better just because they can't see or don't believe any relevant data on possible risks. "I know better" is the same logic I used to justify speeding in my youth. And I figure they do well over 100 mph on the autobahn, so why can't I go as fast as I want here? After all, I didn't have an accident while going 135 mph from Frankfurt to Venice and Rome. I guess we all rationalize our behavior and I don't really care if you turn your Prius off or not, I just don't get why it's so hard to turn if off. There are times I haven't turned my car off, but only when I was afraid it wouldn't start again and I needed gas to get it to the repair shop.

And with that I'm done with this topic.

 

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You are right Mendel.

 

And of course just because you have never heard of it, it automatically does not exist.
Another of your "Don't confuse me with facts, my mind is made up" positions.
Although I have never seen a problem occur with a car, I HAVE seen one with a motorcycle and it wasn't pretty.

And how about this:

Or don't you believe that either because you haven't seen it ???

 

I set my door lock to unlock individually when placed in Park and I usually put it in EV mode and pump my gas, you'll have plenty of time to fill the tank before the engine even turns on or come out of EV mode.

 

Greg, I'm with you on this. I don't power down the car but the engine is off, meaning not running. Since gas stations around here are not located in residential areas it takes some time to drive to one. Even my drive to the closest station in the coldest of weather is long enough to get the coolant temp up over 150F and the battery charged to over 3 bars. In this state with the climate control, radio, and headlights off the battery will not discharge enough for the ICE to spin up. In the 5 minutes or so it takes to fill up the coolant temp will notdrop far enough to cause the ICE to spin up.

Do fires occur at gas stations? Yes. As stated above, the building burns, the trash in the garbage can burns, a static discharge can ignite vapors at the nozzle, a lit cigarette can ignite vapors around the pump.

In the list I didn't see "spark from the engine" as a cause.

Race cars don't turn off their engines. How many pit fires are caused by running engines?

 

I agree. We need to do more personal risk assessment and less blind following of rules, which sometimes have no basis in fact.

 

I disagree Greg. Not because there's any holes in your logic, just 'cause: if we've settled on a set of rules, however arbitrary, let's abide by them.

 

And everyone naturally thinks that HE is fully qualified to make his own assessment of the validity of the reasons behind the rules.

And when I am the car beside you at the pump, arguably in as much danger as you are, I don't trust you to make that call.
That is why there needs to be a "rule" in the first place.

 

i prefer to err on the side of caution, it is not an unreasonable hardship for me to shut the car down while fueling, even in the face of a lack of scientific evidence. common sense can often prove useful to safety.

 

I have 166,000 miles on my 2010 Prius II, and have "never" turned it off when fueling. It is very hot and humid where I live, and I joke to people that comment when my car is cycling at their house that I will turn it off every September. I run a small inverter which powers all of my various chargers, printer and computer equipment. The car is always closed tightly when I fuel. I love my car, I suppose I should replace it one of these days, but....

 

The thing I love hearing is, it is cold out so the gas vapors are low. Gas produces vapors at -45 degrees Fahrenheit.

 

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Yep, I know about the U.S.S. Forest Fire, aka U.S.S. Zippo. Every mothers' son of us got to watch the video in boot camp as well at fire fighting school at Norfolk.

And I, in turn, know a lot more about incident. People got court martialed, and for good reason.

Let's see: Flight ops in the Tonkin Gulf. (Yeah, I have my Tonkin Gulf Yacht Club patch.. Years before I was out there, though.) There was this A-4 attack aircraft. Missiles were being loaded to the ejection rack under the right wing.

Part of that operation was that they take a special static testing meter and connect it to the cable that that gets connected to the rocket. The meter is used to verify that there's no static electricity there.

As it happens, the calibration procedures for the several meters owned by this particular batch of red shirts (not a Star Trek reference - armorers wear red shirts on the flight deck) had been neglected; in addition, several meters had died for various reasons. The 2nd or 1st class PO in charge of the shop didn't want to admit to his superiors that this was the case. And, so, he let the meter be used uncalibrated. And unchecked.

So, the techie checked for static and got nada. The meter was broken.

The tech attached the cable and the Zuni rocket went off. Techie was dead. It hit a fully fueled and armed with bombs A4 or A6 (forget which) directly across the flight deck and killed a couple more people. More people ran up with a hose just in time for the first bomb to bake off; they never found half of them. A chief ran up with a PKP-powder extinguisher and was making a bit of progress when the next bomb went off. They never found him.

Not that any of this was pretty, but there were berthing compartments directly beneath the flight deck. With holes being punched through the armored deck a fair number of the crew sleeping down there never stood a chance.

By the time the standard video is over, about 5-10 minutes, the entire rear third of the flight deck and a bunch of planes are on fire with bombs and such going off every few seconds. A kudo to the crew: With substandard training and some really stupid moves with the foam extinguisher (a fair number of the guys who did know were dead) the crew managed to get the fire out.

The PO in charge of the shop who was responsible for calibrating those meters ended up in Leavenworth. I think that at least one of his superiors did, too.

My history: AT-2, U.S.S. America 1973-1976, AIMD. Yeah, I was in a damage control party, but, luckily, never involved in a real fire.

As a likely consequence of this history, all crew going to sea had to go to fire fighting school in Norfolk Naval Station, from the Admiral on down. No excuses. And, yeah, school was "fun". Besides the hair-raising videos and such, we spent a fair amount of time fighting gasoline-on-top-of-water fires in a concrete structure in one corner of the base that had multiple rooms. The instructors would light a fire and send the students in. The students weren't allowed out until the fire was out. We'd sometimes have impediments, like nozzles falling off of hoses and such. We were expected to deal with it. (Reports were that the Norfolk (city) fire department came down to observe one day. The impediments got pretty rugged with the fire getting somewhat out of control. They were heard to state, "There's no way we're going in there...")

Foam, check. Oxygen Breathing Apparatus, check. Lots of class time, check. A fear of things going boom in the middle of the ocean, check. I turn my Prius off at gasoline stations, check.

KBeck.

 

I understand your passion about being overrun by dictates and laws, but I'm sure there are some fascist iron-clad rules you follow that I would think are pretty inane. I doubt you live a completely anarchist life based on your own personal risk assessments. Plus. I find your earlier analogy of red lights at an intersection interesting. If you truly believe we all need to do more personal risk assessment then why bother with any lights at any intersection. Let everyone come to the interesection and make a personal risk assessment as to whether they should go through. Seems simple enough to me. Gosh, there are tens of thousands of intersections with no lights, and some with a simple red sign that says STOP. I say down with traffice lights!!!

Oh, by the way, I always turn off my car when getting gas.

 

"Over-kill" is a superlative for a reason, "over" means "too much." I went into my reasons in much greater detail earlier. I don't advocate dangerous behavior, quite the opposite; I advocate on-going risk-assessment.

Meaningless gestures which "might" make things safer, aren't really helpful, they only slow down the pace of life. I have a perfect life-long safety record, and I didn't achieve it by luck, or by trusting mindless safety rules. I never stopped assessing the potential risks around me, and conducted things accordingly.

 

I would certainly agree, but I see this whole issue as being very subjective. What you may deem to be "high risk" I would think is "no risk", and vice versa. It's why we have people who climb the outside of skyscrapers with no safety net, and those who wouldn't make the first step on a three-foot step ladder. So, what you think is meaningless someone else might think is valid. Of course we're free to break the "rules".... only if we don't get caught.