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Ford Focus Roof Opened like a Tin Can by Air Freshener Explosion

We don't know what taxi drivers are like everywhere on this planet, but if they're anything like the ones in these parts they'll be using tons of air fresheners inside their cars.
Ford Focus after explosion 1 photo
Photo: SWNS
Washing them ever more often would be a lot more useful than covering any nasty smells with an equally nasty and artificial chemical fragrance, but that takes time and money and if there's anything we learned about taxi drivers so far is that they don't have either of them.

Normally, we wouldn't consider this onslaught on our olfactory sense dangerous. Sure, if they exaggerate with the "New Car" or "Tropicana" scents we might have to empty our stomachs the wrong way, but that's not exactly something life-threatening.

You might want to reconsider that after you hear what happened to this guy in Southend, Essex, the United Kingdom. The unnamed man was taken to the hospital after a small but powerful explosion destroyed his Ford Focus from inside-out.

It would appear the victim had just sprayed some aerosol air freshener (for reasons unimportant) in the cabin of his car and then lit up a cigarette. We don't know exactly how much time elapsed between the two actions, nor how much pine forest was spread inside the vehicle, but judging by the result, we'd say ten cans should have sufficed.

We've all made flame throwers using a lighter and a can of spray, so we know what happens when the two mix, but this is beyond anyone's imagination. As the fumes ignited, they heated up the air inside the car rapidly which caused it to expand. With the doors and windows closed, the pressure built up inside had to escape somehow, so it chose to break the windows, pop the doors and peel off a large portion of the roof just above the driver's seat.

ITV reports that the man suffered only minor injuries. While that is obviously great news, taking it into consideration and looking at the state the Focus is in, it makes us wonder how come the car always wins when it hits a person?
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About the author: Vlad Mitrache
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"Boy meets car, boy loves car, boy gets journalism degree and starts job writing and editing at a car magazine" - 5/5. (Vlad Mitrache if he was a movie)
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