To a guy I just met the other night:

Now, I realize that I'm just a front for the Nanny Government, but will you take some quick advice?

No matter how new your vehicle is, it will make a spark when you fire it up. Gasoline, diesel, electric-- all spark when you turn the key and go. If you can't understand this, allow me to explain sometime how a starter motor works.

I understand that it's your plan to sneak around the cops who have blocked off the city block, to go drive off in your new pickup.
Which is parked 12 feet from the high pressure natural gas meter new hole in the ground emitting copious amounts of methane at high speed.
And which is also parked 14 feet from a pair of gasoline pumps.
Which are about 20 feet from a huge locked rack of propane canisters.

Now, you're a pretty good-sized ol' boy, and I can tell by the cut of your jib and the cut of your jaw, and by the way that you're reaching for your car keys, that you realize that we're all just a bunch of namby-pamby sissy boys who won't do what needs doing, which in your mind right now is to fire up your pickup and ride off into the sunset like John Wayne woulda done. ('Cept of course that the Duke wouldn't have driven a rice-burner.) You, sir, are a Man Of Action.

But I need to point some things out.

First, that gas leak is a few feet from some people's residence.
Second, I've told you not to go over to your pickup.
Thirdly, that guy behind you? My partner? He's not pulling out his Taser. Tasers spark, too. He's reaching for his expandable baton.

This lesson could get painful. Wouldn't you rather just cuss me from the other side of the barricades?

Kaythanxbai.