Bizarre. I've never heard of that but I am in BC. I'm not sure it's a provincial law though, your post caused me to look through the net for similar reports, and, surprisingly, there's quite a few and they highlighted some things I had never thought of. One is that it seems to be a fuel company rule. Anyway, here's one interesting post about it...
Quote:
It turned out that the fuel company had implemented a new policy that motorcyclists cannot refill their bike while sitting on it, citing the fact that spilt petrol may be ignited by a hot engine.
Trevor was surprised by this. After all, as he pointed out, one wasn't much farther away from one's bike if one was standing beside it when filling it. Anyway, he said in true enthusiast fashion, if his pride and joy did go up in a ball of fire then he would want to go with it.
It's an interesting point. What is the danger of the bike exploding if the fuel ignites?
Well, firstly, it would most likely not be the fuel that exploded but the fuel vapour, and that would explode in a tremendously hot flash fire. In this event, if the rider has all skin covered and is wearing leathers, gloves etc and doesn't breath the flame in and sear his/her lungs, no real harm would be done. But it's likely the rider will not be wearing gloves and will have the helmet visor up, leaving skin to be severely burnt in the flash fire.
The second danger is that, if the rider is sitting on the bike, it is unlikely to be on a stand, either side stand or main stand. Thus, if the rider is sitting on the bike, he then cannot escape the fire without dropping the bike. And when the rider drops the bike trying to escape fuel will spill fuel all over the service station. This fuel will probably also ignite, causing a massive fire that will endanger the lives of many other people.
Even if the side stand is down to remove the danger of spilt fuel as the bike goes down, if the rider is sitting on the bike as he refuels it, the potential for injury to the rider is far greater as it will take longer for him to dismount and escape than if he was standing next to the machine.
The fuel company's rules apparently came about because such a fire occurred - a rider was badly burnt around the groin area when fuel overflowed from the tank and ignited while he was sitting on his bike refuelling it.
Another point made was that not having the side stand down has resulted in a rider being pinned by the bike while it burned....so, it seems there might be some merit to the madness?