Quote:
Originally Posted by 00 Trans Ram
However, according to the NACS, Americans refuel between 16 and 18 BILLION times per year. And 48 people, on average, are injured because of gas station fires per year. That's a 1:375,000,000 chance.
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I mean, do what you want - but realize that, statistically speaking, there is no greater danger from leaving a car running.
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I don't care if anyone leaves their car running, but I have to point out that these statistics don't prove anything about the safety of leaving vehicles running. This is a single dataset of refuels performed by Americans who, for the most part, shut their cars off during the operation. It is highly likely that only a very small percentage of these 16 to 18 refuels were performed with the vehicle running. In order to determine the actual chances of fire with the engine running vs. not running, you'd need two samples, one for refuel with engine off, and one for refueling with engine on.
If anything, this data only proves that refueling with engine off makes the operation very, very safe, since 99.99% of these refuels were likely performed with engine off. It proves exactly nothing about the comparative safety of refueling with engine on vs. off.