"Kyle Vanditmars" <kylevan@telus.net> wrote:
[...]
: It's also amazing how annoyed people become when you tell them to remove
: their gas cap from the nozzle. The premise behind that is simple, if the
: nozzle doesn't have something to keep it on without you there in the first
: place, it shouldn't be left. I've taken a nozzle (not attached to a pump of
: course,) wedged a gas cap in it, and dropped it multiple times. I would say
: that 50% or more of those times, the cap stayed in the nozzle. Well, if you
: do that in the real world, and the nozzle slips out of your car. Well,
: guess what's now spewing all over the ground?
That is one of my pet peeves... Not people who put their gas cap
in the nozzle, but gas stations that remove the plate at the bottom
of the nozzle so that it won't stay on. These nozzles have been
carefully designed by the manufacturer, and if a nozzle were to
slip out of a car and hit the ground, it *would* shut off, unlike
having a gas cap wedged in there. I realize that it is probably not
the stations themselves but some stupid law or regulation somewhere
forcing them to do it, but I find it highly ironic that such an
action (tampering with the nozzle so that it can't be locked on) which
is probably done under the auspices of safety is in reality causing
people to go to great lengths to bring back the missing capability,
and creating a *much* more unsafe situation than was there in the
first place. (Sounds pretty typical of the success of a government
solution, actually...)
I'll admit, I have wedged my gas cap in a nozzle to hold it on, but
only in the bitter cold when the wind was blowing and I didn't have my
gloves with me. I'm not about to get frostbite because some idiot
behind a desk decided that it would be a good idea to purposely break a
perfectly safe, functional piece of equipment. I would never walk away
from the pump when doing this though.
Its always such a pleasant surprise when I drive outside of New York
and get to use fully functional gas pumps in other states!
---Jon-
.---- Jon Steiger ------ jon@dakota-truck.net or jon@jonsteiger.com -----. | I'm the: AOPA, DoD, EAA, NMA, NRA, SPA, USUA. Rec & UL Pilot - SEL | | '70 Barracuda, '92 Ram 4x4, '96 Dakota, '96 Intruder 1400, '96 FireFly | `----------------------------------------- http://www.jonsteiger.com ----'
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Fri Jun 20 2003 - 12:05:04 EDT