I have never turned my vehicle off while pumping gas in my life and have yet to have an issue. Especially coming from a Northern state where it gets pretty cold you see a lot of people doing the same thing. What is the potential risk or is it all just a myth?
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There are two parts to evaluating risk.
1. The likelihood that something will happen.
2. The consequences if that thing does happen.
In the case of pumping gas with your car turned on, the likelihood that something will happen is very low. However, the consequences if something *does* happen are significant.
Gasoline fires at gas stations are very dangerous because you are pumping a very flammable liquid. If your car catches fire, the whole gas station can burn down and people can die as a result.
Based on these facts, the small increase in likelihood associated with pumping gas with the engine turned on is not worth risking the consequence of a gasoline fire.
Interestingly, many states do not have laws specifically prohibiting pumping gas while your vehicle is running. Instead, they rely on laws that prohibit leaving your vehicle running while unoccupied by a driver. In other words, if there’s no one in the driver’s seat, the vehicle must be off. This introduces an interesting loophole where it wouldn’t explicitly be illegal to pump gas with the car running, so long as the passenger is doing the pumping.
However, most gas stations have a set of rules posted that require all vehicles to be off while pumping. We get gas at our local Sam’s Club because it has the lowest price around, and there are a couple of really strict attendants there that will instruct you to turn off your car, and if you don’t immediately comply, they shut the pumps down. Then literally everyone at the station is pissed off at you because you’re the guy who got everyone’s gas shut off, and most people have no problem with the “turn your car off while pumping” rule.
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