Just last week I changed the oil

[venta]

On the way into work this morning, I drew zandev's attention to the fact that the vast majority of cars seem to have their petrol filler caps on the right hand side. He pointed out that that was silly, and that there should be an even distribution.

We tried to count filler caps on cars going past, but ran into a problem: seeing one means the cap is on the right. Not seeing one means the cap is on the left or you just missed it. Plus there were issues with cars going past too quickly, sun in eyes, etc.

So, I think a little scientific rigour is needed. And what could be more scientifically rigorous than an LJ poll ?


[Poll #391837]

Comments

[triskellian]

I have terrible problems remembering which side the petrol cap is on if I try to think about it. If I just drive up to the pump, I always go to the right side, but if I try and remember I get all confused. My answer to the poll comes more from picturing myself filling the car with petrol than from remembering the side the cap is on.

[bateleur.livejournal.com]

Dawn's old Nissan Micra had it on the left, though. I was told at the time that it was a "Japanese car thing".

Incidentally, I love the fact that most cars fill on the right, because it means I almost never have to queue for petrol since I can reverse in to a pump on the other side, which nobody else ever does !

[venta.livejournal.com]

Depends on your petrol station, of course :) Sometimes there isn't the space to do that.

Mind you, so long as there's enough space to park far enough forwards, I can easily fill my car up at a leftie pump just by reaching round.

[venta.livejournal.com]

"Japanese car thing"

Hmm. I have indicators-on-right-of-steering wheel placed in my head as an "oriental car thing". I know Hyundais and some Mazdas do it. And Toby tells me it's common in Korea.

I wonder if they're related.

[narenek.livejournal.com]

My Nissan has the indicators on the left of the steering wheel.

It's entirely possible it was built in the UK though.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Well, my driving instructor told me categorically (a few years ago) that no cars were made with the indicators on the right any more. Shortly after that, a friend of mine bought a brand-new car with indicators on the right :)

So they may be getting phased out - I'm vaguely surprised that layouts of car controls haven't been standardised anyway. Right-indicator cars certainly seem to be quite rare.

[smiorgan.livejournal.com]

The new Vuaxhall Vectra has weird indicators. You nudge in the direction you want to go to indicate, and then nudge in the same direction to stop indicating. If you give a little nudge it blinks 3 times and turns itself off, but if you give a proper, manly nudge, it stays on. Which means that if you aren't familiar with it (or are ham-fisted) you can nudge the indicator stick up and down throughout the journey and never turn the bloody things off.

I think it has the indicators on the RHS, too.

The other incident I had with a Vectra (company pool car) was, when driving up to Leeds late at night, I got lost and parked nose in front of a garage door whilst I was checking my map. When I prepared to go off again, I could not find the reverse catch - turned out to be a very small lever under the gear knob that you had to pull to allow it to slip into reverse. I spent fifteen minutes figuring that out. I think that was the same car I spent fifteen minutes trying to find the catch for the filler cap on the return journey.

Damn Vauxhall.

[venta.livejournal.com]

I drive Andy's Vectra occasionally (which is P reg, so a few years old).

It has indicators on the left - I'm quite surprised is Vauxhall have switched them over. I can see that the new nudgey system is possibly quite sensible, but one of those things where the getting-used-to-it hump may take a lot of getting over.

Having driven a few Vauxhalls I'm familiar with their way of getting into reverse (and have taken a long time to get used to anything else).

Andy's Vectra has a mad petrol cap, though. The first time I tried to fill it up, I ended up going home again because I just couldn't figure it out. The flap covering the inlet just wouldn't open... it had no lock, no lever anywhere, no obvious mechanisms at all. It transpires that you open it by just hooking your finger under and pulling - which of coursed I'd tried - but that this only works if the keys are still in the ignition. Mad.

[triskellian]

I think it has the indicators on the RHS, too.
The one I had for Norfolk this year had the indicators on the left, like any sensible car. The nudging thing drove me up the wall, though.

[narenek.livejournal.com]

The Ford Focus that I took my test in had the "nudging thing."

My instructor said they were "Lane change indicators." He told me not to use them during my test as they wouldn't signal long enough to properly conduct the manouvre they were indicating.

[broadmeadow.livejournal.com]

You mentioned this to me before I went to test drive a Japanese car (the one I now own) but I found the indicators and wipers were the "correct" way round. The dealer told me that it _used_ to be common for Japanese cars to have them the other way round.

However, whilst the wipers on the right as you would expect them to be, they work upside-down (that is, you switch them on by moving the stalk downwards).

Another observation: I drive two cars, one has the filler cap on the left, the other on the right (I answered "left" as that's the one I use most - per your instructions). But both of them have a little arrow on the fuel guage showing which side the filler cap is. Always struck me as completely pointless. Is that common? Ooh! Ooh! New poll option!

[venta.livejournal.com]

However, whilst the wipers on the right as you would expect them to be, they work upside-down (that is, you switch them on by moving the stalk downwards).

That, good sir, is entirely the correct way for wipers to work.

I've don't think I've ever driven a car where you switched them up to put them on.

[lanfykins.livejournal.com]

Down is the way on for intermittent. Up is the way on for sensible and downpour.

Why Ford think this makes the slightest sense I know not.

[bloodnok.livejournal.com]

My old Micra had (has, in fact) the indicators on the right stalk, which strikes me as far more sensible, allowing one to change gear and operate indicators at the same time. It also greatly amused passengers when I drove other cars and would signal at other drivers by washing my windscreen at them ;)

[venta.livejournal.com]

The only time I've ever driven a right-indicator car was a hired one in New Zealand. I had exactly the same problem: approaching a junction I'd decisively put my wipers on, and that showed the oncoming traffic, I can tell you.

I got used to it reasonably quickly - driving an unfamiliar car round Wellington one has much bigger problems, like the fact that the entire city is on a 1-in-4 slope.

[sushidog.livejournal.com]

Mine's on the right, but I can fill it perfectly easily with the pump on the left; the hose is usually pretty long!

[venta.livejournal.com]

Aye, I do that too. Mind you, the one time it really wasn't long enough I felt very stupid (and the nice man at the next pump sympathised about how his wife always forgot which side her petrol cap was on and parked herself at the wrong pump, too... Grrrr!)

[mr-flay.livejournal.com]

Nice man? Patronising man? The jury is out, over here at least....

[venta.livejournal.com]

Aye, you'd almost think I'd been using the word sarcastically ;)

[neilh.livejournal.com]

When I complained about this in one of the garages I had this problem with, I was informed (by one of the other customers) that they have some safety cutoff that wouldn't work if the hoses were made longer. To which the answer should have been 'well, they could design that to give the extra six inches you need to reach to the other side of everybodies car', but that didn't come to me until I was about three miles down the road...

[drdoug.livejournal.com]

The only data I have is the observation that whichever side the cap is on in the car you're driving, it'll be that side that has the longest queues at the petrol station.

[wimble.livejournal.com]

What happens if the respondant is knowledgable about more than one car?

My experience at pumps is that it's about a 75/25 split.

[venta.livejournal.com]

What happens if the respondant is knowledgable about more than one car?

It's not relevant.

I want to know about numbers of cars on the road - which means I want each person in my statistical sample to answer once, and if I get 15 answers about Vauxhall Vectras, then that will reflect the distribution of cars on the road.

Anyone with more than one car should answer about the car they drive most often, or if no such car exists, choose randomly.

[wimble.livejournal.com]

Ok, updated appropriately.

[venta.livejournal.com]

So, the first time you filled it in, when it said "my car is a..." you filled in what someone else's car was :)

[wimble.livejournal.com]

No, I filled it in for my old car as well.

Duuuhh!

[venta.livejournal.com]

?? "as well" ??

Is it possible to fill in an LJ poll twice ?

[wimble.livejournal.com]

No, it's not possible to fill it in twice, which is why I asked in the first place.

I'd put Renault 19 / Renault Laguna .

[venta.livejournal.com]

Aha. All becomes clear :)

[ealuscerwen.livejournal.com]

My Toyota Yaris has the petrol cap on the left.

My ex-car, a Mitsubishi Colt, had the petrol cap on the right.

My father's car has the petrol cap on the right.

My mother's car has the petrol cap on the left.

Honours about even, I think!

[venta.livejournal.com]

My Toyota Yaris has the petrol cap on the left.

Ah. That's interesting... we were originally going with the theory that all cars by a particular maker would have the cap on the same side, but this was quickly disproved by Ford.

Toyotas were looking consistently leftie, though. If you've time, can you bung your own car into the poll, please ?

[http://users.livejournal.com/_corpse_/]

I have another leftie Toyota.

I'm not convinced there's a correct side for the petrol filler cap, though I've wondered the same things you did about distributions myself. I recall now that I wondered about it recently in the US, on the off-chance that it was noticeably different. So I started checking while being passengerified on the highway. Sadly, I got distracted. Ah well. I think they had more lefties.

When it comes to the indicators, there is a correct and incorrect. It is utterly, and unquestionably the case that they should be on the right.

[brrm.livejournal.com]

Alfa Romeo 146: right
Morris Minor 1000: left
MGB GT: right

Since the poll didn't seem to cope too well with me filling it in multiple times. :-)

As for indicators - right seems to be common among asian cars, and was pretty much standard on old UK cars (my MG and Morris both have them on the right). Not sure of the origins of left-hand indicators.

Another rant of mine is self-cancelling indicators. I hate them, and fortunately, they have broken on both my Morris and my MG. However, I've not plucked up the courage to break them on the Alfa yet - which cancels the indicators in a most annoyingly reliable fashion just as one drives onto a roundabout (slight left turn before right).

[brrm.livejournal.com]

Can I rant about the Alfa wiper controls too (not sure if they come from similar-era Fiats, it being a Fiat group car).

A nice sensible system is something like VW's - where one moves the switch up to get intermittent, up to get slow wipe, up again to get fast wipe. And push back to wipe the back window.

Alfa, in their wisdom, devised the following:

The stalk has two rings. Turning the inner one turns the rear wiper on or off. Turning the outer one determines whether moving the stalk down will produce long-delay intermittent, short-delay intermittent, or continuous. Fast requires pushing the stalk down another notch.

For some reason, this *still* requires conscious thought to work out what combination of turning rings and moving the stalk is needed to get the wiping I want.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Ooooooh... you've got a Moggy Thou!

[brrm.livejournal.com]

I do indeed. Many pictures (and movies) at http://www.photonhunter.co.uk/~art/cars/ :-)

I miss it, though - it's currently living in my granny's garage. (Oh for a house with a multiple garage!)

Shiny!

[venta.livejournal.com]

One of these days when we shift the dead Renault, I'll have space on the drive here, and y'know... I'll look after it for you :)

When I'm grown up I want to have a Traveller.