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ICE cars are dangerous.

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ElSupreme

Model S 03182
Moderator
Jan 13, 2012
4,303
108
Atlanta, GA
I drive a good amount of interstate (I-285, I-75) in Atlanta. In the 7 or so years that I have had a car here I have seen probably a dozen car fires. So in the theme of " Gas stations are dangerous!! " I am putting up a photo I took last week of a car fire. I just missed the car (behind my B pillar) but the whole grass section between the onramp and interstate was also on fire.

WP_20130206_001.jpg
 
This happened not far from my house a couple weeks ago:
[video=vimeo;59564508]https://vimeo.com/59564508[/video]

A 1991 M5 - the last of the hand-built M5s. Couple hundred grand on the odometer.

The owner had driven just about a mile from his house when he saw smoke. He thinks it was leaves/pine needles that fell through the exterior air vents in front of the windshield that ended up resting next to resistor-based potentiometers that get hot when used to slow down fans. That doesn't seem right for only a mile of driving. The fire was surprisingly slow to get going (water & fire extinguisher didn't work by the time we got them to him), but I think there had to be some kind of fuel/oil leak to have it spread like it did.

Oh, and no boom. Apparently, in most cases something rubber burns away and the fuel drains out of the tank onto the ground. The big danger is an almost empty tank that has a lot of fumes, which are more easily ignitable.
 
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How Ironic

Spotted this on my way to the bank a few minutes ago. :scared:

IMG_1554.JPG


Notice the name of the business - "SAFETY HOUSE". :scared::biggrin::scared:

(No, I don't know why the minivan is on the lawn against the building, but it looks to have been a really bad idea. Three firetrucks and several other emergency vehicles arrived moments later.)
 
I worked for a short time with EMS in Rochester NY, and car fires were an almost daily occurrence, especially in the summer. They rarely make the news, and before I started that job I had no idea. I personally have had one of mine catch on fire, luckily not while I was in it!
 
This happened not far from my house a couple weeks ago:
[video=vimeo;59564508]https://vimeo.com/59564508[/video]

A 1991 M5 - the last of the hand-built M5s. Couple hundred grand on the odometer.

The owner had driven just about a mile from his house when he saw smoke. He thinks it was leaves/pine needles that fell through the exterior air vents in front of the windshield that ended up resting next to resistor-based potentiometers that get hot when used to slow down fans. That doesn't seem right for only a mile of driving. The fire was surprisingly slow to get going (water & fire extinguisher didn't work by the time we got them to him), but I think there had to be some kind of fuel/oil leak to have it spread like it did.

Oh, and no boom. Apparently, in most cases something rubber burns away and the fuel drains out of the tank onto the ground. The big danger is an almost empty tank that has a lot of fumes, which are more easily ignitable.

Glad that no one was hurt in this case. But it also has me thinking about all of the oil and gas that must have seeped out and either run off into the ground water or burned dirty and deposited particulate matter downwind. What a mess.

The governor of our state was recently asked if he though it was fair we let buyers of electric cars here not pay sales tax. He pointed out that the state pays millions upon millions of dollars every year cleaning up oil and gas spills from leaky cars and collisions. Millions that come from tax payers. Since electric cars will never contribute to that, it makes sense to him to give them a tax break. One of the best defenses to tax credits for electric cars I've ever heard.
 
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