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Comment by CamperBob2 | Hacker News Reader

Cite a single instance in which "something happened" when someone ducked into the 7-11 for a snack or a bathroom break while refueling. You'll have to dig for it, as such issues are vanishingly rare.

Fact is, this practice is universal, at least in the US where latches are provided on the pump handles.

Fact is, 99.99999% of the time, it's fine.

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The times I've seen it happen will suffice

Welp, can't argue with that logic.

Of course, it should go without saying that nobody should walk away from the pump for much longer than it takes to fill the tank, if only because it's a douchy move to tie up a gas pump for longer than you need it. But if shutoff failures were anywhere near as common as you seem to think, the latches would be prohibited everywhere.

I never said it was common. But it's undeniable that it happens, and the consequences can be extremely expensive if not deadly.

Lung cancer is extremely rare, regardless of your risk factors. Yet people are still told not to smoke because of the risk increase over it.

Let's see. It looks like about a million people a year die of lung cancer, with about 90% of those attributed to smoking. But we still haven't seen any statistics on the number of burn victims and damaged/destroyed gas stations due to popping into the 7-11 for a Slurpee while the tank fills.

A temporary oversight, I'm sure.

Try a tenth of that in the US. Looks like at first glance there's 4,150 gas station fires a year

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