Wednesday, Feb 25, 2009 at 16:44
Hi Rick, another offshore worker hey. not trying to start an augument either just presenting facts that I have read.
I'll just do a bit of cut and paste from an Australian site that covers it I think.
Mobile phones do not cause petrol stations to explode. There is no evidence that a mobile phone has ever caused an explosion at a petrol station anywhere in the world, AMTA Chief Executive Officer, Chris Althaus, told radio MMM.
MMM has a regular segment that exposes myths.
Mr Althaus said an investigation by the Australian Transport Safety Bureau in 2005 had found there were 243 reported incidents around the world between 1993 and 2004 of incidents of fires starting in petrol stations.
He said although the fires were claimed to have been caused by mobile phones, experts had subsequently found that not one of the incidents was associated with telecommunications equipment. Instead, many of the reported fires were ignited by the discharge of static electricity from the human body.
Mr Althaus told MMM that the amount of radio frequency energy emitted from mobile phones is too low to cause a spark that could ignite petrol.
He said Shell UK Oil had assessed the risks of a radio frequency spark from mobile phones in 1991 and had found that mobile phones did not represent a meaningful
hazard. By far the greatest
hazard, apart from smoking and striking matches, was the car.
The British Institute of Petroleum in 2003 said that the risk posed by mobile phones as a source of ignition is negligible.
Mr Althaus said petrol was flammable and it was important that people were not distracted by using their mobile phones at petrol stations and concentrated on the task at hand.
www.amta.org.au
Chris
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