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James Moylan, engineer behind arrow signaling which side to refuel a car, dies

fordauthority.com

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Re: James Moylan, engineer behind arrow signaling which side to refuel a car, dies

#31

Post by chongli »

arijun wrote: post #17
anigbrowl wrote: post #13

Why would you not just always put it on the driver's side, since they're the most likely to be doing the refueling?

What happens when they sell the car in a country that drives on the other side of the road? They would have to move everything around.

They could design the fuel tank to be symmetrical about the axis parallel to the car’s axels. This would let it be flipped during installation at the factory to have the refueling port facing either side. Then the only difference would be the body panel and little door that covers the gas cap.

Re: James Moylan, engineer behind arrow signaling which side to refuel a car, dies

#32

Post by npunt »

anigbrowl wrote: post #13

Why would you not just always put it on the driver's side, since they're the most likely to be doing the refueling?

safest place is put it opposite of drivers side, because if you're out of gas on the side of the road and filling it up, you won't be standing right next to freeway traffic. Saab started this.

Re: James Moylan, engineer behind arrow signaling which side to refuel a car, dies

#34

Post by charcircuit »

waldrews wrote: post #28
wombatpm wrote: post #24

Which is great for new cars. I drove a 78 Buick Riviera. Friends couldn’t figure out how to fill it up. Because the gas cap was behind the license plate in the back!

Why didn't they just ask ChatGPT? Oh wait.

For those curious, the first sentence of the response from ChatGPT gets it correct.

>On a 1978 Buick Riviera, the gas cap is hidden behind a flip-down license plate on the rear bumper.

Re: James Moylan, engineer behind arrow signaling which side to refuel a car, dies

#35

Post by gk1 »

sublinear wrote: post #26
ryanjshaw wrote: post #15

Anybody else get confused by whether the arrow represents where the car should be or the pump?

I agree. As much as people appreciate the factoid, it's not an example of good design. I don't ever recall the arrow being paid attention to until listicles and other blog spam were born. It has all the elements of great clickbait.

I actually use it all the time when driving a rental.

Re: James Moylan, engineer behind arrow signaling which side to refuel a car, dies

#36

Post by thomassmith65 »

netsharc wrote: post #20
anigbrowl wrote: post #13

Why would you not just always put it on the driver's side, since they're the most likely to be doing the refueling?

And which side is the driver side? Surprise, it depends on the country. And a Japanese car manufacturer will move the driver controls to sell cars in USA/Continental Europe, but flipping everything else will cost more. I've driven 2 models of an Italian brand, my previous car had the gas tank on the passenger side, and my current one has it on the driver side. I do wonder why they changed it. There's also the issue o…

As it should be. If the Globalist cabal had their way, everyone would drive on the same side of the road (like mindless assembly line workers) and traffic signs would be completely standardized, and - yes - the fuel filler would be on the same side of every car (welcome to a monotonous Communist dystopia). They already came for Sweden ('Dagen H' Plan. Do your own research) /s

Re: James Moylan, engineer behind arrow signaling which side to refuel a car, dies

#37

Post by charcircuit »

npunt wrote: post #32
anigbrowl wrote: post #13

Why would you not just always put it on the driver's side, since they're the most likely to be doing the refueling?

safest place is put it opposite of drivers side, because if you're out of gas on the side of the road and filling it up, you won't be standing right next to freeway traffic. Saab started this.

Is that actually safer? Both you and drivers lose visibility which in my mind makes it more dangerous.

Re: James Moylan, engineer behind arrow signaling which side to refuel a car, dies

#38

Post by nullhole »

npunt wrote: post #32
anigbrowl wrote: post #13

Why would you not just always put it on the driver's side, since they're the most likely to be doing the refueling?

safest place is put it opposite of drivers side, because if you're out of gas on the side of the road and filling it up, you won't be standing right next to freeway traffic. Saab started this.

A linked article agrees:

  "... many European cars have the fuel door located on the passenger side, while many Japanese and American vehicles have the fuel door on the driver side. Both techniques have valid reasons. European automakers place the fuel filler on the passenger side for the sake of safety when a vehicle has run out of fuel and has pulled off onto the shoulder of the road to fill up from a canister. Meanwhile, American OEMs tend to place the fuel door on the driver side of the vehicle for convenience reasons, so that a driver doesn't have to walk around the vehicle when filling up at a gas station."[0]
Brings to mind the Dead Kennedys album name, "Give Me Convenience or Give Me Death"

[0] https://fordauthority.com/2020/08/ford-designer-credited-for...

Re: James Moylan, engineer behind arrow signaling which side to refuel a car, dies

#39

Post by pa7ch »

lostlogin wrote: post #30
londons_explore wrote: post #18

You can do a while lifetimes work, and yet sometimes it's a tiny action like this which can have the biggest benefit to mankind. Just think how many billions of times someone has avoided pulling up to the wrong side of the pump because of this arrow - literal lifetimes of effort saved.

The person (committee?) who came up with USB A needs sanctions. And Apple Needs more, for putting power buttons and key ports at that back.

whats wrong with usb-a? I feels more sturdy and less likely to have connection issues then usb-c in my experience.

Re: James Moylan, engineer behind arrow signaling which side to refuel a car, dies

#40

Post by weinzierl »

It's a convenient little invention but "the fact that there wasn't a simple way to know which side of a vehicle the gas tank was located on" is not quite true.

Usually, if the vehicle is of Japanese or British origin, the cap is on the left, otherwise it is on the right.

Source: I’ve driven dozens of different vehicle models all over Europe for decades. This rule always worked well enough for me.

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