brainiacs

[fleckboy]

anyone watched brainiacs, if you have do you remember the mobile phone at the petrol garage. why on earth do places like garages and hospitals still insist on turning off your phone at these places, when on the tv programme they proved that mobile phones dont cause fuel ignition and at hospital machine failures. why display such signs when it rubbish?

[WaldoMcFroog]

Braniac, whilst entertaining, is not terribly scientific about its 'experiments'. While what they say may be true, their experiments simply aren't rigerous enough to use as any sort of proof.

[newtron]

Myth busters tested the same myth, and could not get as cell phone to ignite petrol fumes, and I think they did a good job. So I guess, it's just better safe than sorry.

[Hermit]

I thought it was well established that certain hospital machines could be affected by mobiles but a lot of hospitals only limit their use to certain areas.

[jake-the-peg]

However this guy is scientific:

http://www.kent.ac.uk/sspssr/staff/burgess.htm

Dr. Adam Burgess has published

Health Risks and Rumours at the Petrol Station: The Curious Case of Mobile Phones, Fire and Body Static

In this paper he points out that of the 243 petrol station fires in the last 11 years not one was caused by a mobile phone.

"The petrol station/mobile phone story crosses into the realm of rumour and urban legend," Dr Burgess said.

"Even on an oil rig, the only real reason not to use a mobile is because of the issue of distraction."

Dr Burgess said the Piper Alpha tragedy of 1988, when 167 men died off the coast of Scotland after an explosion, gave "shape and momentum" to the drive for safety.

He said bans on mobiles at service stations were the result of "a relatively instinctive precautionary response".

[shammydodger]

Picking up on Jake's point about Piper Alpha, I was shown a video about this disaster during training to become a union Health & Safety rep. One of the main causes of the disaster was the failure to follow the correct procedure for handing over a job between one shift going off duty and the next shift coming on. A simple piece of "bureaucratic" paperwork not being adhered to lead to the deaths of 167 people. I use this example whenever some idiotic loudmouth starts to moan about having to fill out a permit to work.

[Tim123]

There's some more interesting stuff here:

http://www.snopes.com/autos/hazards/gasvapor.a sp

Whilst the manufacturers do recommend turning off your phone while filling up, I strongly suspect that they say this in fear of running up against the combination of a young attractive litigant; a -shall we say- 'less than completely objective' expert witness; and a sympathetic jury, rather than in the belief that use of their equipment will actually injure someone. There is no downside to them offering this advice, even if it is nonsense.

[vida]

I have just had a stay in Milton Keynes General Hospital and they actually openly told us that we could use our mobiles as there was no danger at all of anything going wrong. The only place you can't use them is the intensive care wards.

[fo3nix]

I can remember being told this by a lecturer of mine, specialising in more electrical engineering-type applications.

The mobile phone has quite a powerful transmitter which requires considerable current to be switched on and off. When you switch off there is a spark at the switch.

Of course, the chance of actually causing this is fairly minimal, given the casing of the phone. I've certainly never received a shock from the spark as I turn my phone on or off!

[fo3nix]

However, checking what my lecturer said, he seems to disagree with me (d'oh!):

"Try connecting a flash lamp bulb to a battery in a darkened room. When you disconnect the wire, even that small current
will give a visible spark which could ignite petrol fumes.(Nothing to do with shock nor being surrounded by plastic)"

[CT]

There's probably more likely to be a spark from static electricity, rather than from a phone.

[kempie]

The real reason hospitals don't like people using mobile phones is because they can make a profit from the pay phones and the Patientline �pay as you go� service.

[steveb]

i believe some old style pumps can be adversely affected by the frequency of transmissions by mobile phones which was the original reason for banning them from the forecourt.

[Catso]

fo3nix, while you are right in saying switching off a transmitter will cause a spark at the switch, this isn't very likely to happen in a mobile because (in common with almost all electronic gadgetry today) it will be switched on/off by a transistor switch, not a mechnical one. No spark.

CT: yes indeed, I often get a shock off my car door handle!

[boobesque]

there are quite a few intensive care machines that can be affected by mobiles, in my local hospital there are lots of places you can use your phone but near the Neo-natal and Adult intensive care you MUST have them turned off, being the mum of an ex prem baby i would freak if someone used their phone near the ward!

[lord molly]

mobile phones emmit / recieve microwave ratiation. thin bits of metal, such as a splinter, a mesh or a fuel filter are vunerable to become recievers for this type or radiation. it is rare for it to happen, but take this from me; mobile phones are able to cause tiny sparks on matalic meshes and other stuff similar to them. the sparks to the the potential to ignite the vapour from high grade hydrocarbon, suchas petrol, not so much desil but petrol deffinatly!

i am a pilot, who prefers to refuel his own light aircraft, the petrol used in avation (AV-GAS) is very volitile, and i have seen a man refuel his light aircraft whilst on his phone. he spent a month in hospital recovering from a flash fire which left half of his face horribly distorted.

don't use a moble near petrol, or a quarry, as the detinators can be set off by the signal given out by phones

lord molly

[Gef]

molly is talking rubbish. Mobile phones do not produce sparks and also avgas is less volatile than pertol.

Many UK petrol stations (I can't remember which companies) admitted to having mobile phone masts hidden in their advertising signs which display prices.

[gary baldy]

The reason hospitals dont like you using mobile phones is because hospitals are places where sick people are trying to get better and whilst they may be trying to rest they dont want to be constantly woken up by a selfish tw@ 's phone chirping up with the bleeding crazy frog or something and then someone yacking at the top of their voice about who is up for eviction on BB or what sort of legwarmers Kate Moss is wearing!

[fo3nix]

catso: that's what I was thinking, seemed off to me.

thing to learn here: mobile phones get blamed for all sorts of things, when in reality they don't cause quite as much damage and interference as everyone thinks.

[Catso]

I think there may have been more truth in these 'allegations' for the early phones (bricks (and larger!)). These were analogue, and needed higher transmission power (remember they used to flatten in a day?!). They were probably also 'dirtier' transmitters. But today's digital phones? I don't think they interfere with anything unless very, very close. I did hear somewhere that it has been proposed that the use of mobiles on aircraft should be permitted now (can't remember whether US or UK).

[Tim123]

Lord Molly,

Do you have a link to the report of the investigation that must have followed the fire? I ask because in every case I have heard of where a mobile phone was blamed for starting a fuel fire, the ensuing investigation discovered that it hadn't.