Spontaneous Combustion

A while ago I heard on Paul Harvey that Woman were ~80% more likely to spontaneously burst into flames while pumping gas into their car. Later, I learned in my chemistry that one of the risk factors for Spontaneous Human Combustion was being a woman. I sorta laughed both off until I saw this while filling up my car.

As it turns out, woman are 80% more likely to reenter their car while filing up with gas. While reentering their car it is possible to have an undesired effect of generating static electricity while sliding across the seat. The net result of this static electricity with all the gas fumes is an explosion when the electricity is discharged on the pump handle as the first metal object touched.

Ouch.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *