Our brains are easily fooled. It's easy to poke fun at supposedly smart people making dumb mistakes like putting petrol into diesel engined cars, but it says more about the way our brains work than about the men's IQs. Our brains are 'designed' (equipped by evolution) to concentrate on important things in the environment, and leave routine things to remote control. So we don't devote a lot of effort to making a cup of tea or buying milk at the local shop - we've done it thousands of times before; so we don't need to think about it. But mistakes get made when an unexpected novel factor is introduced, in these cases, diesel fuel pumps when you've spent your life refueling your own, petrol-powered vehicles.
This failure-to-notice is suggested as a reason why pedestrians, cyclists and motorcyclists get hit by cars. "He came from nowhere officer" "I simply didn't see him" are not so much indicators of blindness or incompetence: we simply don't register things that 'aren't meant to be there'.
Check out the invisible gorilla experiments if you still doubt. Or if you don't want to watch a YouTube vid, see book explaining why we should be a bit more humble and forgiving.
Police forces have spent more than £300,000 in the past two years repairing diesel cars and vans damaged by officers who filled them with petrol.
Almost one in six diesel vehicles owned by the Metropolitan Police — the worst offender — werefilled incorrectly, costing more than £170,000. Many forces have had to fit preventive caps and warning stickers because of the number of incidents.
Twenty-nine out of 43 forces in England and Wales responded to freedom of information requests for incidents in 2009 and 2010. In total 20,500 diesel vehicles were misfilled 1,471 times, at a cost of £338,800, according to information posted on the website whatdotheyknow.com.
The cost of repairing each one varied from £93, spent by Humberside Police, to an average of £960, spent by the City of London force.
Suffolk Constabulary, which spent £8,000 repairing misfilled vehicles over the two years, has fitted “wrongfuel inhibiting devices” and other warning systems.
“Staff are constantly reminded of the need to take care when refuelling older vehicles, with warning signs and other methods, including audible warning devices, being utilised,” a spokesman for the force said.
Gavin Hill-Smith, a spokesman for the AA, said that on average 150,000 diesel vehicles were misfilled each year, about 1 per cent of the total number on the road.
“These police figures are obviously higher than the wider population, but in fairness they’ve got a mixed fleet of vehicles and a high-pressured job and unfortunately this is all too easy to do,” he said.
Mr Hill-Smith said that the cost of draining the fuel from a misfilled vehicle was about £300, but the total repair bill could rise to as much as £7,000 if parts, or the entire engine, needed to be replaced.
“Our advice is to take your time at the petrol pump and make sure that you are putting in the correct fuel,” he said. He added that drivers should not turn on the ignition if they had filled the tank with the wrong fuel.
A spokesman for the Metropolitan Police said that the number of misfuelling incidents was decreasing. “We ensure that every vehicle has clear indication of which fuel is required on fuel flaps and vehicle log books. In addition, manufacturers are now integrating preventative misfuelling technology,” he said.
A spokeswoman for Essex Policesaid that there had been a significant reduction in the number of the force’s vehicles damaged in this way. “All drivers are regularly reminded to pay attention to fuel type, especially when changing car, and we’ve fitted new fuel clamps to prevent misfuelling,” she said.
No comments:
Post a Comment