Talk about your spoiled brats!

[edible_hat]

A customer was filling up her car when her 5 or 6 year old daughter pulled out a mobile phone. Mobile phone use while fuelling is potentially hazardous* and there are signs around the place saying so, also if we notice anybody using a phone we're supposed to turn the pump off. Instead, this customer notived and told the kid to put the phone away.

The kid took off running around the forecourt and screaming. After a minute or so the mother caught her and carried her inside, while lecturing about the possible dangers. Even asked me about it (I confirmed that it's unlikely but possible... on another note, I sometime get SCs who say "nobody's ever died of it!" when I won't let them do something dangerous. They back down when I ask them if they want to be the first.)

So the mother pays for the petrol, by then the kid is sitting on the counter. What's next?

"OK back to the car! We'll leve here and you can call him back."
"NO I DON'T WANNA GO SCHOOL!"
"OK what ice cream do you want?"

Straight to bribery, not even token resistance by the parent! No wonder she was such a little cowpie.


*in theory, a small gap (such as that between the nozzle and the edge of the filler hole) could be just the right size to act on the resonant frequency of the phone signal, in which case you can get a spark jumping that gap. I know mythbusters pronounced it "myth busted" but all they proved is that it's difficult to do on purpose.

[friendofjimmyk]

I know mythbusters pronounced it "myth busted" but all they proved is that it's difficult to do on purpose.

I saw that episode. I came in toward the end of them busting the myth so I didn't get to see how they conducted the experiment.

[IvorTangrean]

They put a phone in a enclosed box and filled it with gasoline vapor, they found that a phones signal spiked when it was first called. They upped the gas levels until the box did explode if I remember right, but a human would have died due to lack of O2 before that point anyway.

[jedimaster91]

With the Mythbusters, the object in question WILL explode if they have to tie a stick of dynamite to it. I really want their job.

[Lace Neil Singer]

I always figured that there was more of a risk involved due to the fact that vapour is heavier than air, so collects on the floor; so, if a customer dropped their phone, there's a chance of a spark emitting; just as if you dropped your ipod or any kind of object made out of metal parts. We tell people that if they ask and it seems to make more sense to them than the other explanations. XD

[Hobbs]

i thought it was from a static charge you collected from your upholstery that could set it off...

[Geek King]

I saw that episode. I came in toward the end of them busting the myth so I didn't get to see how they conducted the experiment.

Long story short, they did a worst case scenario with the cell phone in an enclosed space with a manufactured "perfect storm" air-fuel mixture. Multiple calls to the cell phone resulted in nothing other than some bored firefighters standing by. Just to prove the mixture (and cause a boom ), they set up a pyrotechnic sparker and made the little room go ka-blooey.

So yeah, no very likely that a cell phone will do it. In fact, other studies have proven it is actually more dangerous to get back in your car while filling, then get back out. This causes a stactic discharge situation that they have proof can ignite gas fumes in a working fuel station. Still, if the shop or laws say no cell phone, then you don't use one. Simple facts of life.

[artifical sweetner]

i never did understand why young kids need cell phones anyway sheesh.

[Lace Neil Singer]

I have one cuz I don't have a landline. However, I have more sense than to attempt to use it in a place where its use is prohibited. -.-

In my neck of the woods, there have been quite a few cases of muggers going after kids in order to steal their phones and ipods for the obvious reason that it's a lot easier to knock a twelve year old on the head and steal their mobile than to do the same to a lorry driver. So kids having phones could invite crime and injury on themselves and their friends. O.o

[Arm]

I'd think it'd depend on the phones, too, and if they're in good repair. My friend had one with exposed contacts on it, for where you were supposed to charge it, and it used to short itself out on the change in his pocket. Though I guess you'd be more likely to have a pants fire in that situation, I still wouldn't want it to happen while fueling.

Either way, like Dredd says... The Law is The Law!

[chainedbarista]

this kid needs to meet my mother, badly; that phone would have been destroyed and her backside warmed. gonna cry about that? i'll give you something to cry about...

needless to say, my brother and i were pretty well behaved for a pair of adhd kids.

[taxguykarl]

this kid needs to meet my mother, badly; that phone would have been destroyed and her backside warmed. gonna cry about that? i'll give you something to cry about...

You too! I doubt that I would have a phone in the first place--well maybe a GPS-equipped one for tracking purposes.

[chainedbarista]

nope, i wouldn't have had a phone either, we lived a pretty toned down lifestyle, and cell phones (if they had existed then) wouldn't have played much a part in our lives.

the discipline, however...it goes to explain why i have little/no patience for ill behaved children and those who spawned them.

[edible_hat]

the discipline, however...it goes to explain why i have little/no patience for ill behaved children and those who spawned them.

My brother in law said if his mother was like that, the first words out of his mouth every morning would have been "I DON'T WANNA GO TO SCHOOL!". (Nowadays he's still not allowed to eat ice cream, his fault for marrying a health nut)

[bookishfreak]

So kids having phones could invite crime and injury on themselves and their friends. O.o

Very true. A kid got robbed at gunpoint right in front of my house just a couple of months ago, for his ipod.