I suspect for most readers this will come down to an ‘only in California’ comment.
The long and short of it is the fire marshal requiring the removal of the latch which allows the nozzle to fill up without you holding it. The report cited *13* cases in which this brand of of nozzle had stuck and spilled gas on the ground.
Now I am certainly not one who wants dangerous products to be used and obviously you have to be very cautious when it comes to gasoline.
But thirteen cases ?
There are roughly 22 million drivers in California. Figure they fill up once every two weeks (which is conservative) and that you have one car for every two drivers (also conservative). That would add up to about 286 million times a year they fill up.
Now the report says it only impacts one third of the stations, so figure those stations get 90 million a year.
And we had 13 reported problems out of 90 million.
But we have to ‘protect’ people……