A Pennsylvania man died last Friday in a freak fire at a gas station. Authorities say that the fire was sparked by static electricity on the man’s body, and he died of inhalation of superheated gases. While this type of fire is very rare and fatalities even rarer, they do happen. To prevent them, you should do something terribly mundane: do not ever get back in your car while fueling, and make sure to touch a metal surface before fueling.

Built-up static electricity can be discharged as a spark, igniting the gasoline. But in this case, authorities are unsure what could have ignited the fire.

State police fire marshal Eric Keebaugh, who investigated the fire, said several things could have happened to discharge the electricity and spark gasoline vapors.

After he got out of his car, Byers might have closed the door with his elbow or his shoe, which would have insulated his body and not allowed him to “ground” any electricity, Keebaugh said.

Some clothing also is more prone to lead to the buildup of static electricity, he said. Renkes said he knows of one fire that resulted after a man put on a windbreaker.

“There was a perfect alignment of the conditions to create this tragedy,” Williamson said

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Here’s a disturbing statistic: 80% of static electricity/gas pump fires happen to women, who are apparently more likely to climb back in our cars to comb our hair or fix our mascara or something.

This video shows a fire that started in a similar way, but did not result in serious injuries.

Gas pump death a warning [Lancaster Online]

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If you want to try human breast-milk cheese, make sure you stop in at Klee Brasserie in New York City the next time you visit. It’s made from the chef’s own wife, and he tells the New York Post, “It tastes like cow’s-mik cheese, kind of sweet,” and changes flavor depending on “what the mother eats.” His wife says, “The breast is there to make food.” Maybe, but I’m thinking this is a good way to shave a little off the cheese budget.

(I’m so sad nobody can comment on this post for now.)

“NYC Restaurant Serves Breast-Milk Cheese” [The Daily Beast]

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Wisconsin’s lemon law for cars is pretty strict. If a customer demands a refund on a newly bought car that won’t run and can’t be repaired, the manufacturer has to comply within 30 days or pay double the purchase price plus legal fees. Marco Marquez has been fighting Mercedes-Benz for 4 years now over a $56,000 E 320 he bought in 2005 that immediately stopped working. He says the company deliberately stalled on giving him the refund in time, and last week a judge awarded him $482,000.

Because the lawsuit keeps dragging on–a judge ruled in his favor in 2007, then an appeals court overturned it and a jury sided with Mercedes, the last week another judge overturned the jury verdict–the cost of the payout keeps ballooning. In 2007, the award was $202,000. Of that $482,000 awarded last week, only $168,000 covers the car (double the purchase price plus interest).

Marquez says whether he ever sees the money or not, he’ll never buy another Mercedes–although he says he’s still driving this one until the company gives him a refund.

“Mercedes-Benz hit with large ‘lemon law’ judgment” [Associated Press via Atlanta Journal-Constitution]

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Jessica Palmer at the blog Bioephemera recently had a bad run-in with a bookseller on Amazon, which she talks about at great length in a post. The mistake she made, she says, was that she didn’t exercise due diligence in researching the seller for complaints, and she didn’t read through all the many reviews on Amazon to see if the negative ones demonstrated a pattern. But her bigger issue is that there’s still no way to shame a bad retailer the way local news stations do with local brick and mortar stores, which is why it’s so important to stick by your complaints once you make them.

She writes that the bookseller, which had ignored her emails during the month she waited for her book to arrive, contacted her immediately once she’d left a negative review on Amazon and asked her to change it in exchange for a refund on shipping fees. Palmer notes that for many customers, it might be appealing to make a little extra money back in exchange for retracting a bad review, but it hurts the whole system:

What’s so wrong with buying off disgruntled customers? Isn’t it the nice thing to do – to give them a token of apology for their trouble? Sure. But the net effect of this practice is detrimental to the buyer community as a whole, since the bad seller’s feedback rating is no longer an accurate reflection of its performance. The buyers who have been bought off with the token of apology are still unhappy, after all! They’re just less unhappy. Competitor sellers who actually engage in good business practices, accurately describe their merchandise, and have decent customer service still didn’t get that valuable sale. And most importantly, the feedback information used by future buyers to pick the sellers they want to buy from is not accurate, so in future transactions, both good actor competitors and buyers will continue to lose out.

[...]

Even if you have no ideas for changing the system, I urge you to think about the feedback you do leave as a public service. Truthful feedback really can help other buyers avoid getting ripped off, and direct business to sellers who act in good faith. And while it may feel futile or pointless, it’s one of those benefits that can only accrue if a lot of us chip in for no immediate reward.

“Shaming in the Marketplace: who polices online sellers scammers?” [Bioephemera]

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A day after a 2008 Toyota Prius went rogue at speeds over 90mph on a California interstate, Toyota has announced that is adding a few hundred thousand more vehicles to its already record-setting global recall.

According to a spokesperson for Toyota, the specifics of the newest additions to the recall list haven’t been announced yet because the car giant “hasn’t developed the remedy yet.”

The 2008 Prius was already on the recall list for floormats that were causing the accelerator to stick to the floor of the vehicle, but Toyota had merely been telling owners to remove their floormats until a fix was figured out.

After yesterday’s incident in California, the owner of the car told reporters that he had received a recall notice and had attempted to have his vehicle serviced at a dealership, only to be told that his car was not on the list.

Last night, both Toyota and NHTSA said they were taking the Prius incident seriously and were each sending inspectors out to take a look at the car. It is not yet known if the car’s floormat was the culprit in Monday’s case of the runaway hybrid.

Toyota Working on Prius Recall Fix [WSJ]

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