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Has this ever happened to you?

not like that...

but that's a pretty strong little car, yes?

I guess the housing around the pump isn't so strong. Around here the hose has a snap away joint just for these kind of problems.

good idea!

as for that pump, you'd not want to create too many wee sparks around it....

There are some humungus sized gas storage tanks underground. I'd hate to think of what could happen if one of them decided to blow. However, my understanding is that the liquid isn't so volatile. It's the fumes that set off explosions.

yep, that's true. remember the Pinto (?) with the gas tank problem, that would blow up if rear ended? well, people started to drive with their tanks nearly empty, until it was pointed out that that was the very worst thing you could do, apart from driving it.

why anyone would..?

Good point about the Pinto automobile. Now and days we have smart phones that blow up and burst into flames. We live in exciting times.

...and while sitting on the plane we get announcements of the Whatever 7 being banned from the aircraft. I mean, excuse me, who's going to do what now, open the window and throw it out? you'd THINK i'd make more sense to have posters an announcements in the waiting area where you're sitting around for an hour or two doing nothing much anyway???

but nooope.

Yogi is right, gasoline does not burn, only the fumes it emits.
The way underground storage tanks are designed, the chance of one exploding is next to nil.

In the old days, vents were often located behind gas stations, for air to enter and exit the tank.
Now they use a gas fume recovery system, as you pump gas into your car, the fumes from your tank are sucked up by the gas nozzle. Some states may not have implemented this, or had it and done away with it.

When they first started doing it this way, I thought it most dangerous, because now we had an open system to the underground gas tanks right where an accident could easily happen. Sucking air into the underground tanks from the point where the gas is dispensed sounded scary to say the least.
But the system does not work quite like I envisioned it, so perhaps it is good that it keeps all those fumes out of our air.

The most dangerous element at a gas station is your own empty gas tank!

but you can still smell the sticking fumes...?

and why is it you can't supposed to use a cell phone in the filling area (although everybody does)?

The pump filler nozzles on our gas stations back home have a spring loaded rubber sleeve that seals the gas tank opening, so no fumes get into the air while filling.

The gas stations down here do not have that seal, but they do have holes in the side of the double sleeved filler nozzles that air is sucked into when you are filling your tank. Because of this, we don't smell any gasoline fumes around the gas stations here either. Unless someone overflows their gas tank, hi hi...

You can stand around all day tossing lit cigarettes into a bucket of gasoline and never get the fumes to ignite.
That being said, a lot of cigarettes used to contain saltpeter, which is what made the little spark every so often when smoking. I don't know if they still do or not, but that spark is supposedly hot enough to ignite gasoline fumes, if the air to fuel mixture is just right.
Some clothing creates hotter static sparks than ever produced by a cigarette. Which is why you should always touch something metal that is grounded before attempting to fill a gas tank.
In low humidity areas, static discharge is all too common. If you are wearing the wrong clothes, everything you touch gives you a static shock, hi hi...

I wear PVC suits. That eliminates the spark problem.