I was gassing up my car today, and locked the handle as usual so I don't have to stand there with it the whole time. A bit later, I check and notice gasoline is spilling out of my car and onto the concrete!
The automatic shutoff on the pump, which is supposed to kill the flow when the gas reaches the tip of the nozzle, had failed. If I had gone in to get a snack and not noticed this in time, a LOT more gas would have spilled and it would have been an even MORE dangerous condition.
Luckily, it was only a little bit and I was able to wipe up the mess on the side of my car, but I've certainly learned my lesson:
Don't trust the automatic shutoff feature on gas pumps! Always stay with the nozzle when fueling!
And yes, I did report the problem and they decomissioned that pump by putting a plastic bag over it.
Yeah, that happens.
Hey Zorin. I work at a big truck stop gas station. That's not all too uncommon occurance, really. Either a leaky nozzle or the automatic shutoff would be the only reason why we would replace a nozzle, actually.
You should really not trust the automatic shutoff. In fact, in Canada and a lot of European companies we remove the automatic fill tab when the nozzles arrive at the station from our supplier.
FUN FACT: It costs more to order the nozzles without the automatic fill tab, than without. Go figure.
I just wanted to say that, wh
I just wanted to say that, when transporting something dangerous like gas from one container to another, wouldn't it be better to always just stay with it, even if it does have a shutoff feature that you would expect to work? I have always trusted the shutoff feature, but nonetheless I would never, ever have left my car unattended while gas was being pumped.