Every weekend thousands of motorists from Northern Ireland cross the border to fill their tanks - and the plastic containers in their boots - with cheaper fuel. Brian Byrne and Trish Whelan report on the traffic and the danger it poses
The cars begin arriving around mid-morning every Saturday. Lots of them, all Northern Ireland registered, all coming across the Border. Their objective - cheap fuel.
Heading home, many of the cars have become mobile "bombs". Containers of petrol in their boots, sometimes on the back seats, have the potential to cause catastrophic damage if involved in even a minor accident, especially in a crowded town centre. Yet nobody seems to worry much about it.
Anyone spending time over the weekend at a service station in the Republic close to the Border will be struck by the queues of Northern cars keeping the banks of pumps running virtually continuously. They will also see the number of customers who fill their vehicles in the normal way, then open the boot and fill up plastic containers with more motor fuel.
Typically, four 25-litre containers will be stacked in the boot, totalling roughly twice the capacity of a car's fuel tank. No particular precautions appear to be taken. Sometimes the containers are put in black plastic bags so that the luggage area is not contaminated. Quite a few drivers use rubber gloves during the long fill-up to prevent the smell of the fuel staying on their hands.
Very many of the cars are hatchbacks. This means that the containers are not even in a separate enclosed compartment. Not that it would matter much if one of these cars was involved in a rear-end impact of any significant magnitude. The containers are not tethered down in most instances. If they burst in a crash the likely result would be a spray of highly flammable fuel to cars in front and behind.
Much of the fuel bought in this way is diesel, but a significant proportion is petrol. There are strict regulations and detailed recommendations about dispensing and carrying of motor fuel other than in vehicle fuel tanks. Many of these regulations appear to be breached by both filling stations and customers.
According to Esso Ireland's retail safety and training department, it is illegal for a filling station operator or its employees to dispense petrol into a container unless that container is conspicuously marked with the words "petroleum spirit" and "highly inflammable". Containers must have a maximum capacity of 25 litres if they are metal - or five litres maximum if they are of plastic material and complying with IS 1982/630 standard. In general, the advice to Esso filling station operators in the Republic is NOT to fill any container with petrol. Most do allow customers to self-service, though only into approved containers.
At a number of busy service stations within 10 miles of the border last week, we only once saw a customer using specific metal "jerricans" for petrol. They were of 20 litres capacity each. He was still breaking the regulations - the Dangerous Substances Act Regulations 1979 allow only two 10-litre approved metal containers of petrol to be carried in a car in a public place.
The regulations are not so strict on carrying diesel, which is initially less dangerous than petrol. Petrol gives off inflammable vapour at around 22°C, whereas road diesel begins evaporating at around 55°C and doesn't spontaneously combust until there's a local temperature of a little less than 400°C.
That doesn't mean diesel is that much safer in a crash. If "loose" diesel splashes onto a hot exhaust manifold, for instance, it will immediately form an inflammable vapour and any spark in the region can ignite it.
Petrol tanks are designed and placed to withstand bad crashes, especially since the 1970s when Ford's Pinto in the US featured in a high number of fatal crashes where the car went on fire. These days too, fuel cut-off switches operate in an impact to stop petrol being pumped onto hot engine components.
However, none of these safety features apply to fuel being transported in car luggage compartments. The potential is lethal.
Insurance companies don't have particular exclusions about policyholders carrying "loose" fuel, although a spokesman for AXA says that, if there was an accident which involved any breach of the Road Traffic Acts, compensation "might be left to a judge to decide."
According to an underwriter, insurers "can't write everything into a list of exclusions" because they can't foresee everything. "For instance, nobody ever thought a motorist would go over a bridge and cause a major rail crash, which did happen recently," he said.
The Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) said it "had no evidence" of motorists driving through towns with potentially lethal loads of fuel.
Nor, in recent times, has the PSNI issued any warnings about the practice. Similarly, gardaí in Border areas don't seem to be particularly worried. "One is aware of it, but there haven't been any incidents nor have we instigated any prosecutions," says Supt Michael Staunton of Dundalk.
However, he recalled a case "many years ago during a petrol strike" when there was a "horrific" accident involving a car with extra petrol in the boot. "That showed just what can happen," he said. "We will be issuing warnings in the coming weeks."