[xionon]

Gasoline is not actually explosive - the fumes are flammable, but not the liquid itself. Hydrogen is much more flammable, and will ignite from a much smaller spark than gasoline will.

Cars catch fire in accidents all the time, it's not that hart to imagine that the problem might get worse if we switched to an even more flammable fuel.

[dublinben]

Compressed hydrogen would diffuse so quickly that the chance of a dangerous explosion is quite low. Fuel cell vehicles would actually be much safer than gasoline vehicles in this regard. As soon as you were in a catastrophic accident, all your hydrogen would vanish.

[tbrownaw]

As soon as you were in a catastrophic accident, all your hydrogen would vanish.

You would have a bottle of highly compressed hydrogen somewhere. The bottles can be designed so they don't explode when damaged, but it would take a non-zero amount of time for the hydrogen to escape. For however long that takes, you have a jet of escaping pure hydrogen that would make an excellent blowtorch if anything resembling a flame or spark gets too close.

[protomyth]

"You would have a bottle of highly compressed hydrogen somewhere."

http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/fcv_benefits.shtml shows another option for storage (Materials-based storage) that will probably be safer.