Posted By Martin From the previous thread, I thought that the shell alert about 3 incidents of mobiles igniting petrol fumes was a hoax, yet it's appeared again in the 'in brief' section of SHP (pg12). Can anyone confirm whether these are actual incidents or not? Many thanks

Posted By janette shaw Hello To help, if not answer, the question; Most chemical sites, including the one I work on, will not allow mobile phones onsite due to the potential for explosion/fire if mobile phone stray spark and flammable vapour combine.Its a rare but possible scenerio/ accepted safeguard. Petrol is a lot more flammable than diesel. A spill of petrol & an 'on' mobile phone would not be a good idea- thats why you have signs @ petrol stations,& many staff are informed not to turn on the pumps if you are on the forcourt with a mobile phone (but they will if you are in the car with the window open!- wierd but true). I have a contact at Shell who i will try to get an answer from but as it is possible - be it myth or trueth its still an issue!

Posted By Andy Petrie The following story appeared in last weeks manchester evening news: "Protesters hit out at a deal in which the mobile phone antennae are being placed inside the price information pillars on service station forecourts in a bid to avoid opposition. Petrol giant Shell has admitted that it has 210 mobile phone antennae at its service stations and Texaco has 20." It seems odd that mobile phones in service stations are forbidden when there are antenna built into the price signs!! Should you decide to use your phone in a petrol station, then at least you will get a good signal.

Posted By Laurie I must admit that having a very simple mind I just thought that HSP had gone to print before the Shell stories had proved to be false! Laurie

Posted By Tim Martin You are right to raise this concern. A magazine like SHP with such a high profile management board should be a reliable source of information. The lesson is that it is not wise to rely on one source for research (and certainly not snippets or soundbites). In the small print the publishers absolve themselves and IOSH from responsibility for views and opinions in most of the publication. That is not all that unusual but it is worth remembering when you read SHP in future. Tim

Posted By Robert K Lewis I dare say that the insurers use flying pigs to advertise themselves. On serious note however I think the possibility for fire obviously exists and the carrying of live phones on a forecourt is not a good idea. But, and it is a big but, I have doubts concerning the urban myth fires that seem to have occurred. Some sources point the Far East, some to Spain, some to the States and some to the UK. This widely scattered location pattern suggests that stories these are doing the rounds and are modified with the place of telling being inserted as necessary. There is a salutory lesson for us all in this. People exaggerate and personalise "stories" and even eye witnesses to events are not necessarily reliable sources of information. I was intimately involved in the Flixborough disaster and each person had a slightly different slant on events, these needed evaluation against the known facts to reach a version of the truth. This is particularly seen in the Two versus One pipe theories of causation in the Inquiry, but was personally noted elsewhere. Bob