Has a propane tank ever blown up in a moto-concho accident?

Conchman

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I am just curious, has there ever been an accident where one of those propane tanks blew up on the back of a moto-concho? One would have to speculate that, taking into account that one can see moto-conchos carrying these tanks on a daily bais, it must have happened before, if not several times.

But has someone actually a seen any evidence of such an accident?

Or, is it difficult for one of those tanks to explode? LOL
 
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MikeFisher

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never saw such,
but i could imagine that it happened many times.
not "blowing" up like explosions in american movies, lol,
but when falling down/or the moto get's hit and falls down aso and the head of the tank hits the road, all that gas pressure in that tank would come out, making the tank a rocket which even could be deadly for nearby persons.
but in 14 years on domincan roads i never observed such accident myself, i did not even get told about such happened.
interesting Q,
with all those motos every day with their tanks on the road to fill 'em up,
and we know about their driving style, lol.
Mike
 

Robert

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Never heard of any problems. The only one I have ever seen (afterwards) is a taxi, now that made one hell of a noise and a mess of the car. The driver had a few burns, but nothing life threatening.
 

El_Uruguayo

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Yeah you'd think that a car might blow up too. All the cars modified for propane have the tank in the trunk. If someone got rear-ended hard enough, those suckers could blow.
 

Black Dog

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Oops, sorry about the misspelling on the thread headline. I won't get hung for this, will I?

Mipselling is not a hangling offence LOL

I have a customer who has a gas company in Canada and the first time he saw a moto carrying a tank he called it "a bomb on a bike"
 

sweetdbt

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If you are a fan of the "Mythbusters" show on the Discovery Channel, you will know that blowing up a propane canister is actually harder than you might think. Trying to reinact a scene in a James Bond movie, they were unable to explode a canister by piercing it with a wide range of ammunition, including tracer bullets. They finally were able to do it only with specialized incendiary ammo.
 

pedrochemical

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I know that you can explode them if you put them on a decent campfire fire.
The regular small variety give off quite a respectable mushroom cloud.
I saw this done at a youth club summer camp when I was a youth.

We were experts at blowing stuff up, however, so please do not try this at home folks.
 

Black Dog

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Now that's quite disturbing, I had a friend that used to break wind over the camp fire and I thought that was dangerous LOL
 

SteveS

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Yeah you'd think that a car might blow up too. All the cars modified for propane have the tank in the trunk. If someone got rear-ended hard enough, those suckers could blow.

There's been a few Santo Domingo taxis go. I don't know whether the result of an accident or just poor maintenance, the one I remember seeing was outside Casa Cuesta on 27 and Lincoln.

There was another in the newspaper about 2 months ago as well.
 

juanita

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I remember watching a public car's passenger getting out of the car real quickly as the gas was fuming everywhere; the driver turned the gas off and they all got back in and drove away!
 

pedrochemical

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Now that's quite disturbing, I had a friend that used to break wind over the camp fire and I thought that was dangerous LOL

I was in the scouts in the UK as a boy.
Nothing like you might imagine.
Some of the stuff we used to get up to - I am amazed that nobody got badly hurt.

Kids today do not know what they are missing sitting in front of games consoles all day.
They need to get out and blow stuff up for real...

Er, well OK then - maybe not.
:bunny::bunny::bunny::bunny:

Sorry - off topic.
 

ExtremeR

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I was all for using propane tanks in the cars, but after seeing a couple blow off following a minor accident and the people inside dying burned, I prefer to stick with the expensive precious liquid "gasoline".
 

SteveS

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I was in the scouts in the UK as a boy.
Nothing like you might imagine.
Some of the stuff we used to get up to - I am amazed that nobody got badly hurt.

Kids today do not know what they are missing sitting in front of games consoles all day.
They need to get out and blow stuff up for real...

Er, well OK then - maybe not.
:bunny::bunny::bunny::bunny:

Sorry - off topic.

ohh memories memories..... same as you I was a young boy scout in the UK.

And sure enough, putting a sealed cans of anything you could get your little hands on onto the fire at night was wonderful fun......especially to see how far in the air you could get it....

Kids don't know they're born...
 

Vacara

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If you are a fan of the "Mythbusters" show on the Discovery Channel, you will know that blowing up a propane canister is actually harder than you might think. Trying to reinact a scene in a James Bond movie, they were unable to explode a canister by piercing it with a wide range of ammunition, including tracer bullets. They finally were able to do it only with specialized incendiary ammo.

I know an easy way to make it blow up; first try to unhook it from the pipe with a wrench, unable to do so get frustrated and hit the handle with the wrench an "kabooooooon!!!!!". That happened when I was a teenager and they needed it a scrapper to get the guy's brain off the ceiling!.
 

MikeFisher

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lil example:
as long as no 'chispa' is involved outcoming gas near a hot engine would do nothing, no lil bumbum or such, just diving down to the ground.
outfloating gasoline over the same heated engine would burn the oxigene/gasoline mix right away and when reaching the tank outlet it would be a nice bumbum.
but still not like in american movies where all the stuff blows always up even before the impact, lol.
of course a car full of outcoming gas like described in a post above is big dangers, a lil electrical 'chispa' would do a great bumbum job.
and the low maintenanced cars where the gas can come out are usually also the ones which do not have the best maintained electrical system, ha ha.
on a maintained vehicle i would def not say that gas is more dangerous than gasoline involved in any impact/accident.
of course on both variations we can find countless great bumbum pictures from around the globe as examples for both, gas or gasoline, most btw taken out of some movies anyways.
i wonder myself often enough since over 14 years on the isle that not more accidents happen by the way propane is handled everywhere, on the road AND in the HOUSEHOLDS!
but on the other side i wonder the same about the typical careless handling of gasoline/combustibles.
i also wonder the same about the few car accidents happening here on the east compared to the amount of traffic AND the way many people drive/or not know how to drive!

it the Isle,
and it all works out just fine.

so i learned over the years to not worry too much,
to just relax,
just hit a lil bit(more a soft touching than real hits) motoconchos who cut my way or touch my car from the right when they do not carry pretty women, lil kids or propane tanks. the others are for diversion, of course.

that's living on the Isle.
it works out just fine.

heck,
when german summer breaks starts and the autobahn fills up the highly educated top experienced and qualified drivers there run mass crashes of dozens vehicles involved each crash year by year again.
to see a single St Dgo Cabby in his ole 40 years ole Datsun chicharra or a tank transporting Motoco?o driver (that's no accidentally misspelling) go skyrocking, heck, that's nothing compared to the overall incident free crazy traffic/gas handling everywhere down here.
Mike
 

sweetdbt

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Actually, a beer keg in a campfire will produce almost as impressive an explosion as propane (another Mythbusters episode;)). You just won't get the secondary ignition after the initial explosion when the container ruptures from the pressure.

I would say there is greater risk in propane cars because the tank is in an enclosed area and there are hoses and valves to leak and heat from the engine and exhaust system. The tanks on the back of motos look really dangerous, but there is probably more risk of injury or damage just from getting hit by one than an explosion.
 

pedrochemical

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Aug 22, 2008
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And the way I have seen propane tanks attached inside converted cars is pretty scary.
Just thrown in the back with a couple of chains over it.