It may seem trivial, even a silly first world problem that shouldn’t occupy more than a fleeting thought. In a society where we have managed to all drive on one side of the road from our cars with steering wheels on the one side, cant we get the autos to have the gas fillers on the correct side?

Traffic moving in and out of gas stations become chaos when you get some little car with the gas filler on the wrong side screwing up the flow. They come in the wrong way and always make getting out, more work then it should be. Why in a civilized world can’t we seem to get all the autos to fill up on the left side, the correct side. It seems so basic. 

I shudder to utter the words, “There ought to be a law,” since in reality there are many. One such law has rendered the most convenient place to fill the tank, in the middle under the licence plate, illegal. Maybe, just maybe the car companies could agree on the place where flammable liquid is deposited into your car. NOPE! Even though it would make trips to the gas station far more orderly, since there’d be no question as to what side of the pump you should pull up to.

Of course engineers use safety as the reason for all of their different justifications for the many dissenting opinions. Jason Torchinsky wrote an in depth look at this issue in 2017 on Jalopnik.com and even pursued statements from the many car companies. Some justify the right side fillers by sating that when being filled on the side of the road it is safer to have it on the passenger side… so, don’t run out of gas. Duh! 

It’s not like it’s only foreign cars either. Ford and Chevy do it, too. Within a make and even model it can vary. The issue is most frustrating at gas stations with pumps in a single row. Naturally people will enter to the right of the pumps, coming from both directions. Order is achieved. Then comes the one guy with the filler on the wrong side and screws it up. About the only place it isn’t an absolute pain in the gas, is at stations designed with each pump in a column to itself. 

Oh and one more thing. When you’re done filling up, get out of the way. If you are going to run in to pay that is not the time to do your grocery shopping for the month or play the lottery until they cut you off.