A few readers wrote in regarding our post Saturday about cellphones and whether or not using one can accidentally spark a fire at a gas station (turns out that they don’t):
From Modesty:
Being from the UK I thought I’d add my 2p to this. Most signs show a phone with a line through it, nothing about stuff blowing up. I believe this to be a throw back to the early days of mobile phones and older gas pumps. In the old days the phones could interfere with with the signal sent back from the pump to the cash register, so the final price would be all messed up (the rumor went round that it was possible to reduce the final cost) thus the banning of phones. There hasn’t been any interference between these two things now for years and years, so it’s just some weird hangover from yea olden-days. People just assume that because there are “No Matches”, “No Smoking”, “No Breakdancing” and “No Flamethrows” signs, that the “No Phone” sign naturally is connected to big booms.
From Alan Waller:
No, you don’t set gas stations alight by using your cellphone. But… you do set gas stations afire by fumbling with your phone so you drop it, or if it falls out of your pocket. As it hits the ground the phone battery usually loses contact with the internal terminals of the phone. If the phone is switched on, this causes a spark, close to the ground where the heavier-than-air gas fumes are most concentrated. That’s why those warning signs are displayed.
And a few readers also wrote in to point out that an American television program, MythBusters, recently explored this very same topic.
