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

[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.