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To: chrisser
Common sense would dictate the filler door to be on the same side of the vehicle as the steering wheel,

I see no reason why that would be necessary or desired.

Again: You keep the person filling fuel away from the traffic


134 posted on 08/17/2012 9:58:04 AM PDT by Oztrich Boy (Monarchy is the one system of government where power is exercised for the good of all - Aristotle)
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To: Oztrich Boy

Traffic?

I’m not sure what you mean.

I’ve never seen a station like the one you pictured anywhere in the U.S. It appears the pumps only service traffic on one side.

All the ones in the U.S. are completely off the road with traffic being serviced on both sides of the pump, and traffic entering the station from both directions. The convention, up until recently, was that you pulled to the right of the pump island you approached, just as you stay to the right on the road here. This puts both the driver (most U.S. stations are self-service except for 2 states that mandate otherwise) or the attendant between the vehicle and the pump.

The problem occurs when a vehicle does follow convention and pulls to the RH side of the pump island, but then has the fill door on the RH side. This would expose the attendant or consumer to business traffic (assuming the hose was long enough to reach over the vehicle, which it usually isn’t for safety reasons and to prevent the hose from scraping on the ground). The solution to this is what causes the real problem. In order to fill these vehicles, they must defy convention and pull to the the LH side of the pumps as they approach the pump island. But of course, that’s the RH side for traffic coming from the opposite direction, and virtually every service station here accepts incoming traffic from both directions.

If business is light, it’s not generally a big problem. When business is heavy and people are queued in line waiting to fill their tank, these vehicles are going the wrong way so they make a mess of the logistics. These vehicles then have to back away from the pump, which is unfortunately difficult for many to do without being in the cramped confines of a busy gas station, surrounded by flammable liquid dispensers, other vehicles, and people walking about. The pump islands are generally not far enough apart to allow them to pull around the incoming traffic waiting for service - backing away is the only option when things are busy.

This was never a problem until around the 1990s or so. Virtually all cars sold in the U.S. had their fill door on the LH side, or in back. I first started seeing RH side doors on imported vehicles, and then, for some strange reason the domestics have started to do it too, but only on some models (most notably not on pickup trucks and SUVs, at least not that I’ve noticed)


141 posted on 08/17/2012 11:19:46 AM PDT by chrisser (Starve the Monkeys!)
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