Cigarette At Gas Pump Sends One To Jail, One To Hospital (idiot of the day)

KEYE ^

[chance33_98]

Cigarette At Gas Pump Sends One To Jail, One To Hospital
 

Investigators say a 17-year old Austin boy set a gas pump on fire when he tried to fill his tank and smoke a cigarette at the same time. Just after midnight Sunday morning, investigators say vapors from the teens cigarette ignited, the boy was startled and pulled the nozzle out of the gas tank. The gas, in flames, splashed on a fourteen year old girl. She was taken to Brackenridge hospital with second and third degree burns. The 17-year-old boy is in jail on a $5 thousand bond. Over a thousand dollars in damage was done to the MetroMart Exon in Southeast Austin.

[chance33_98]

Isn't he too young to smoke? Boy, they should make a law about that.

[Chad Fairbanks]

If only there was a law prohibiting smoking at a gas pump... oh wait...

[John Jorsett]

Obviously we need a law requiring people to observe the first law.

[537 Votes]

All we really need is a law against being stupid.

[Governor StrangeReno]

Better still about ten years ago the Station manager afraid he was being ripped off by the tanker co that investigated the tanker,hmmm can't see anything in here I know,flick,flick...body found found two blocks away

[AmericaUnited]

Darwin award top five nominee.

[My Favorite Headache]

Ok this Darwin Act took place in Texas. When did Bush know about this and what did he do?

[Chad Fairbanks]

I always thought that common sense would dictate that smoking, while pumping gas, was not a good thing to do... Apparently I was wrong...

[ContraryMary]

Another candidate for the Darwin award.

[Bloody Sam Roberts]

All we really need is a law against being stupid.

There is. It's called the Law of the Jungle.
Some know it as 'natural selection'. At least it used to work on humans

[Tacis]

At the risk of being attacked by some far more sensitive, warm and fuzzy than I, my bet is that we are dealing with, how shall I say this, honored visitors in our country, folks who have drifted north from some wealthy southern land where menials pump gas for the aristocracy. I hope the Austin cops called the foreign counsel and asked him for permission to take this lad under the public wing.

[Don Corleone]

A local attorney says '"It was all the gas pumps fault!"

[AK2KX]

I was at a friend's house a couple of weeks ago. He was getting his four-wheeler out of winter hibernation for the first ride of the spring. He was showing me how the carburetor float sticks and spills gas out the overflow tube.

About a cup of gasoline spills out onto the garage floor, then he proceeds to light a cigarette. I suddenly found that I needed to look for something at the other end of his yard.

[SamAdams76]

Speaking of laws, did you know that it is now illegal to pump gas without having your hand on the handle? All the gas stations have busted out the notch that allows the handle to lock into place and pump gas so that you can do other things, such as check the oil or clean the windows. The auto-shutoff feature still works even when the handle is latched in this manner. Before self-service, when everything was full-serve, gas station attendants used this trick all the time.

Well I started getting around this inconvenience by wedging the gas tank cap into the handle. If you insert the gas cap a certain way, the handle is locked just as if it still had the notch in place. And the auto-shutoff still works fine.

Recently however, it seems that yet another law was passed forbidding people from doing this. Many pumps now have signs stating that "items wedged in handles are illegal" and on two occasions, I have had gas station personnel tell me that what I am doing is illegal. Screw that, I don't want to stand there like a dork holding the handle down the entire time the gas is being pumped. I refuse to do that. SO I will continue wedging the gas tank cap and if I ever get arrested, I'll be sure to post about it here. Damn nanny government!

[proxy_user]

"All we really need is a law against being stupid.

The only way to do that, is to declare the entire US a 3000-mile-long jail.

[ladylib]

This has been bothering me for awhile. Does anyone check out the personnel where they get their gas pumped? Some nut could chuck a lighted match in the tank and blow everyone to kingdom come. I live in NJ. We don't pump our own gas. Maybe I better learn how.

[solo gringo]

Austin has a law that only the Idiots go out after dark.

[LibKill]

Stupidity cannot be cured with money, or through education, or by legislation. Stupidity is not a sin, the victim can't help being stupid. But stupidity is the only universal capital crime; the sentence is death, there is no appeal, and execution is carried out automatically and without pity.

Robert A. Heinlein

[speekinout]

Speaking of laws, did you know that it is now illegal to pump gas without having your hand on the handle?

That's not true everywhere yet. I wondered why I've seen those notches missing in some neighboring states' stations.
What, pray tell, is the logic for that? The worse danger is "topping off". My local stations all have signs asking people not to do that (but people do anyway - there are plenty of spills to show why it's a bad idea)

[TomGuy]

Cigarette at the gas pump?
Duh!
Now if we just had someone with a lighter!

Ding Ding Ding
We do! Hold your calls,
we have a winner:

Woman Burned Using Lighter Near Gas Tank