Why
Are Women Responsible for
78% of All Re-Entry Refueling Fires
By Stevie Hazen, Science Editor
April 15, 2010
Refueling
fires have and continue to be a danger. There have been
three deaths in the last few months. One issue that is
of particular interest is why these fires happen more
to women than men. This is established even though the
last three deaths were men.
Latest
Auto Refueling Fire Claims the Life of a 19 year Pennsylvania
Man!
The Petroleum Equipment Institute has
stated that almost 80% of all refueling fires where a
person gets back in the car after beginning the fueling
process are women.* PEI
Stop Static Site
The PEI analyzed the fire reports which
came in to their web site and found a large percentage
of the re-entry fires were women. Some theories have been
proposed as to why. It is not believed that the clothing
has anything to do with the higher percentage since women
and men today wear very similar clothing. The main theory
which has very good credibility is that women get back
in the car more often than men. It is believed that this
is due to men having their money and credit cards in the
wallets and women keeping theirs in their purse which
may be left in the car or truck. Also women are considered
more likely to get back in the car for warmth and for
attention to small children.
This article describes research into the
percentages of women getting back in their car versus
men during the refueling process. Since the research was
performed in April in South Carolina, the warmth factor
will not be an issue in the data. This experiment will
be repeated in the winter months to determine the warmth
factor contribution.
Hypothesis:
If the refueling process is monitored
and the numbers of males and females who stay at the gasoline
nozzle during refueling versus those that get back in
the car or truck are recorded, then the issue of females
being more likely to get back in the car will be verified
or discounted.
The research involved visually watching
the customers at several gasoline stations over a period
of 3 days. The numbers of males and females refueling
their vehicles were recorded. The number who stayed at
the nozzle as well as the number who got back in the car
were also recorded.
The data were placed in an Excel spreadsheet
and analyzed.
The following are the results.
|
Females
Refueling Vehicles
|
|
Males
Refueling Vehicles
|
|
Stay at Nozzle
|
Re-enter Vehicle
|
|
Stay at Nozzle
|
Re-enter Vehicle
|
|
40
|
10
|
|
85
|
1
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Percentage of Women
Re-entering Vehicle
|
|
25 %
|
|
|
|
Percentage of males
Re-entering Vehicle
|
|
0.1%
|
Evem though the data were taken during
the spring, the numbers are unmistakable. Women get back
in the car much more than men. Therfore they should account
for a high perportion of the refueling fires. 78% being
women is not unreasonable.
Stevie
Hazen, Science Editor
