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this post was submitted on 30 Jan 2026
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AssholeDesign
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This is a community for designs specifically crafted to make the experience worse for the user. This can be due to greed, apathy, laziness or just downright scumbaggery.
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In the US we have warnings on the pumps to leave your cell phone in your car, as they could somehow create a spark and ignite the fumes. Is that the case in the Netherlands?
The sign is because American fuel pumps bizarrely have locks on them so users can leave them unattended while pumping. In the 90s fuel fires were thought to be caused by users being distracted by their phones and overfilling their vehicles.
I was taught the problem with lockable handles became apparent in the 00's when E85 became a thing, as it ignites much more easily from static discharge than gasoline or diesel. Maybe I was taught incorrectly, maybe you guys had E85 earlier than us (Sweden).
Definitely not an E85 thing. Gasoline fumes will ignite very easily from any spark of basically any type of normal petrol. It's kinda' exactly what it's refined to do...
I was incorrect. The problem is E85 has no problem burning down into the tank, where a large pressure increase could make the tank rupture and a large fire break out. Petrol kills the fire if the ratio fule:air becomes too rich, E85 does not.