Oy!!! My parents are both teachers! (Actually, you may be right.......!).
: )
I am unsurprised it's frowned upon, really... but it does make me laugh the stuff kids actually get up to, and how much we try and molly-coddle them.
Bizarrely, I wasn't allowed to watch Tiswas or Grange Hill, but WAS allowed to pump highly flammable fuel into a motor vehicle.... ah the 1970s eh?
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When I was a young boy I used to really love the smell of petrol!
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When I was a young boy I used to really love the smell of petrol
I still do. That and hot (but not burning) engine oil.
Two of the many reasons I will always love motorbikes. You can smell the mechanical bits.
Cheers
DP
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are you sure it wasnt bens,ole?
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Some people want to wrap their children in cotton wool, prevent them from ever taking risks and deprive them of unhealthy foods like cake, chocolate and ice cream. They will grow up wimpish, clumsy, chocolate-addicted and stricken with allergies.
Others let their children drive old tractors without roll cages on steep slopes and encourage them to play contact sports and visit dangerous parts of the world without much money. Those who survive will grow up, er, better than the other sort.
I feel some of these posts are a bit exaggerated in tone. I would rather refuel my own car than let a child do it, because I would do it more efficiently. Takes all sorts though.
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When I was 14 -15 I had part-time job as a petrol pump attendant - suppose the law must have cahnged since the '60s.
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Phil
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"Some people want to wrap their children in cotton wool..."
I do hope not. This is from the Health and Safety Manual of a certain UK University (not the one I work at):
Cotton Wool
Cotton wool or other readily combustible materials must not be used unless adequately treated to render them flame retardant.
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ROFL
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TourVanMan TM < Ex RF >
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When I was 14 -15 I had part-time job as a petrol pump attendant - suppose the law must have cahnged since the '60s.<<
Me too. and it was proper petrol, with lead in it etc.
I don't think there were many opportunities for healthy jobs back then - like flipping burgers.
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> I don't think there were many opportunities for healthy jobs back then - like flipping burgers.
Can you get a job as a Pizza kamikaze at 16, with a provisional bike licence, or has the age for provisional m/c licence gone up?
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Surely the exposure to benzene in unleaded petrol is the main concern here. It's a proven carcinogen that causes leukaemia at even tiny exposures. There is no "safe" level of inhalation.
If petrol pump attendants still existed; would they now have to be swathed in air-fed suits to comply with Occupational Exposure limits?
Why do pumps in the US have vapour-recovery systems and the ones over here haven't?
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>Cotton wool or other readily combustible materials must not be used unless adequately treated to render them flame retardant.
You've got me really worried now. I've seen stuff at my sons' school that's pretty well the same as the stuff that produces huge, hot flames when I use it to start the barbecue, yet the children seem to be using it in classrooms with minimal supervision. Now, what do they call it? Ah yes - 'paper'.
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The kids at my local Tesco are usually at the air line pumping up their bike tyres.
Ironically they are not supposed to that that either, although I suspect it's because some motorists object to having to wait a minute or two to do their car tyres.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
What\'s for you won\'t pass you by
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Given the seemingly high number of adults on this forum who cannot distinguish between the words "petrol" and "diesel", would delegating the task to a 13-year old child be better or worse?
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Well asked Cliff....:-)
--
PU without his Mod Hard Hat on !
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Like PhilW I had a job on the pumps from the age of 14, I think. Seem to recall I started on 15p an hour!
There are notices on forecourts about use of pumps by children, but like almost everything else today there is no enforcement. Personally, I never let the kids out of the car at filling stations, much more dangerous than crossing a busy road.
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Always struck me as ironic that when tetra-ethyl lead was banned because it might theoretically cause brain damage in children who lived on urban roundabouts, they put the much nastier substance benzene in petrol instead because cars wouldn't run properly without it.
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Actually on reflection I suppose lead was removed from petrol because it kills catalysers, and all the stuff about brain damage was part of the campaign to sell the idea to the public.
Although they sometimes smell disgustingly of hydrogen sulphide, catalysers and lead free do do quite a lot for the atmosphere in places like Los Angeles they tell me. In the 70s with the wrong weather conditions there was a constant exhaust haze that made the Hollywood Hills look very pretty, like a Japanese painting, but stung your eyes and nose and can't have been good for you. Of course they are expensive and fragile and something that can wear out or go wrong and have to be replaced, so the car industry is laughing. And so, rather surprisingly, are urban pedestrians.
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Re parents and attendants allowing kids to fill the tank, I don't suppose the parents have seen the effects of an accidental spillage of fuel, either immediate fire, or delayed, when contaminated clothing bursts into fire. But the attendant should be trained (ha-ha!) and switch off the pump if this idiocy occurs. BTW Lud, I think benzene has always been in petrol, and its not a substitute for lead - but it might be higher in concentration in higher octane fuel?
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'If petrol pump attendants still existed...'
They still do - I was at a filling station last week and was served by an attendant. It was like going back 30? years.
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'If petrol pump attendants still existed...' They still do -
Indeed - I had this delighful experience at a garage on crete when filling up the battle scarred hired Fiat Punto.
In pidgeon greeklish and hand signals, I managed to convey those long lost but imortal words
"Fill her up dahlin"
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TourVanMan TM < Ex RF >
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"Fill her up dahlin" ------------------------------
...and two shots of Redex?
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It´s amazing what retired Swedish footballers get up to these days.
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Re: having your fuel pumped, visit the Esso in Sanquhar (North of Dumfries A76) during the week. I've been in a couple of times and had my fuel pumped for me, and my change returned all without leaving the car.
First time it happened to me in over 12 years - and that was at a two pump station out by Kirkcaldy if I remember right. Wish more places had staff that made the effort.
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I filled the petrol tank on my Dad's Anglia when I was 5 or 6.
Fotunately I used soil, so the health and safety risk was not too high.
How he laughed....
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As TVM says Petrol Pump attendants are indeed still around in Crete - petrol is pumped with a smile.
SWMBO , helicopter jr and I have just returned from there after a couple of weeks holiday.
We went on and off road in a Jimny with the highlight being an off road excursion up to 1680 M to a mountain walkers retreat called Kallergi in the white mountains above the Samaria Gorge. SWMBO needed the toilet and was directed to an outside facility , a small wooden hut in a crevice of the rocks , lifted the lid to find herself looking down at a straight drop of 1000 metres +.....
She decided to hang on until we got down to the next village.
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My wife won't fill her car up. Nothing to do with H and S, just that she can never seem to put the nozzle in properly and so delegates it to me - and of course, I end up paying. But she is a whiz with the controls on the washing machine and the dishwasher.
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I fuel up the Golf.....
(a) To ensure that it always gets the VPower it needs.
(b) I always seem to get tasked to go and get milk or bread at the correct tactical moment when the warning light comes on.
--
PU without his Mod Hard Hat on !
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In reply to the OP. "Why haven't the petrol stations got warning signs up to educate these idiots?"
I am dismayed at the fact that my kids won't have the responsibility of filling the car. I used to look forward to the excitement and responsibility as a kid. I don't see why they shouldn't. As soon as I can get away with it, they'll be using them.
Protect kids from stuff like this and you remove the excitement and learning from life.
I love my kids climbing trees. I fell out of enough and I learned that falling hurts. I relish it when they go out of sight in the park. They are learning a little independence. I was delirious with happiness when my son fell in a stream the other week while building a dam with me. I don't know what he learned, but it was damned good fun for both of us. Perhaps we should have warning signs on all these activities, too.
V
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I always try to go to one particular Shell garage - not quite the nearest - because there always seems to be the same guy on duty to fill up for you (if you want him to). And he checks the oil whilst you´re paying, and cleans the windscreen, and salutes you when you drive off (I kid you not). With a name like Norbert Füllt he´s in the right job.
Unsurpringly they get my custom.
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"checks the oil , and cleans the windscreen, and salutes you when you drive off"
Normal practice in my earlier mentioned part-time job, especially for a regular customer who was young (mid-twenties), very attractive lady who drove a sportscar with front suicide doors (MGTF?). I always made sure that I got quickly to her car when she arrived and opened the door for her. And opened it again so she could get back in. Did I mention that she also wore very short skirts? Well, it was the mid-sixties and mini-skirts had just become fashionable and an MGTF was not easy to get in and out of and.............. well, I was only 14 or 15
--
Phil
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Bravo, hear hear and other such parliamentary-style agreement.
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