For years I have been under the impression that it's illegal to use a cell phone while you're at the gas station filling up your car with gas. But is it really true?

I was always under the impression that there was a risk of fires if you were on your cell phone as you pumped your car full of gas.

Get our free mobile app

So the warnings started shortly after Americans really started carrying around their cell phones in 1999. It started on the internet naturally, where so many rumors happen, according to Snopes.com.

They said the incidents occurred overseas where victims were severely burned by using a cell phone at a gas station. However, none of those reports were ever confirmed, Snopes.com says.

In fact, the FCC (Federal Communications Commission) says there's no evidence of that being a legitimate risk. "It may be theoretically possible for a spark from a cell phone battery to ignite gas vapor," they say.

However, it's been explored by many like The Discovery Channel's Mythbusters who experimented with it, and they did not start a fire.

So, wait, why are there all of those signs on the gas pumps that say "cell phone use not permitted" if it's not actually dangerous?

Well, it's really that it's a major distraction. It's important to focus on the task at hand when dealing with gasoline. A distracted motorist may not pay attention to a warning on the pump or runs another risk, Readers Digest, via rd.com, reports.

LOOK: See how much gasoline cost the year you started driving

To find out more about how has the price of gas changed throughout the years, Stacker ran the numbers on the cost of a gallon of gasoline for each of the last 84 years. Using data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (released in April 2020), we analyzed the average price for a gallon of unleaded regular gasoline from 1976 to 2020 along with the Consumer Price Index (CPI) for unleaded regular gasoline from 1937 to 1976, including the absolute and inflation-adjusted prices for each year.

Read on to explore the cost of gas over time and rediscover just how much a gallon was when you first started driving.


More From 94.5 PST