@@hankschannel Keep in mind that not all blur is destructive! Black bars are usually better, no matter how annoying they might be, as there's no way to undo that on our end.
Don’t forget that some cars are sold in international markets where it may change from drivers to passengers side because the steering column (entire dash) may be flipped but the gas door stayed the same. For example: 2020 Jetta in North America has it on the passenger side but in the UK it’s on the drivers side WITHOUT it actually changing sides! 🎉🎉
this was my suspicion, and after seeing some of hanks graphs I lean heavily towards. also... aside I wanted to blurt out. car manufacturing in britain... that'd be Land Rover, wouldnt it?
from a personal safety perspective, if you're on the passenger side of the car filling gas, a car thief could sneak into the drivers seat when you turn around to put the pump back. don't have to be female to be worried... also why my father taught me to always take the keys with me when I pump gas when I was learning to drive (he grew up in NJ, I few up in rural NY where we didn't even lock the house when we left for the day)
It was never a really big thing until my daughter started driving by herself and she expressed that stopping at a sketchy gas station, she hated having to walk around the car and feeling so far from the driver side. She just made that as an offhanded remark, but the next time when she was looking for a car, I brought that up to her and she made sure the car had it on the driver side. She said she was surprised how much more secure it felt to her. Also, have you looked at something Power BI for parsing that data? Its free and its a lot easier to click and select things. Import the table, drop a few objects on a page, drag the columns over, and then just click the fields or slide for ranges and it will filter the other graphics on the same page. Its really easy for doing what you had there.
A self defense expert I've watched in the past recommended that people stand by the back corner of their car away from the pump after getting the pump started so you can't get trapped as easily. Staying on the pump side means that 2 people can box you in really easily. But the thing he most advises is paying attention to your surroundings. Sometimes this is all it takes to discourage someone with ill intent from approaching you and even if it doesn't more time gives you more options to either escape or successfully defend yourself.
@@cleanname4439 You shouldn't be leaving the engine running in the first place while filling up. Pretty much every gas station has warning signs to shut your engine off while refueling.
@@Dhalin I've always done this but never understood why when commercial, military, and race vehicles can refuel while the engine is on. If it's unsafe, make it safe and market cars with the new feature. Best I can figure is fumes at the fuel island are bad for folks.
Hi guys! Auto engineer in Detroit. This is hilarious you’re thinking about this - as we don’t even out this much thought. The preference is drivers side for proximity and safety - lower risk to leave the pump in the car. The main driver is that electrical wires are on the opposite side of the vehicle from the gas filler neck. Whoever designs their part of car first puts their parts on the left side - wires are expensive too so cost savings are everywhere.
I always thought it ended up being what market it was made for. I live in Australia we're left hand drive, American imports are all passenger side fuel doors - because its the same car (essentially) but with the steering column moved. Japanese cars, being native LHD are all driver side for us, because we import their models. In the US some of the Japanese cars are just RHD converts of Japanese produced cars, so they have passenger side fuel doors. But a lot of Japanese carmakers make US-specific models in their US plants, so they're "natively" RHD and hence have driver side fuel caps.
Hank, as another data lover, it hurts my soul to watch you scroll through the table one by one rather than a pivot table by who made car and count of submission time.
Scrolled way to far to find this comment 🙂 Hank, as amazing a guy he is, apparently hasnt' done two common things in his life yet. Use a pivot table, and fill up at Costco hehe
Literally not even a driver and I am unironically highly invested in this as someone who has thought about this too much. Hank is like an extension of my hyperfixations lol
My husband saw the title and we immediately ran to the video. Nearly everytime we go to the gas pump he complains that the fuel door should be on the passenger side so we aren't at risk of dinging the driver's side door. Thank you, Hank, he feels so validated 😂
@brianbarber5401 No, he would prefer to not hit the door on the gas pump. So he would prefer the fuel door be on the passenger side. As for cars driving through, just check no one is coming. He has had two Subarus prior to his current car, so he misses the fuel door being on the passenger side.
I once owned a 1993 Chevy Caprice and the fuel filler was in the center behind the license plate that you flipped down to access it. My Uncle's 1990 Cadillac Brougham was the same setup. I actually like this feature because if there was a long line at the gas station I could quickly zip in the first spot that opened, it didn't matter which side, a rather convenient feature not found on any modern vehicles.
I drive a car with a fuel door on the drivers side and I prefer it because 95% of the time I am pumping gas alone and at odd hours because I work night shift. My car has a feature where to exit and enter my vehicle I only have to unlock the driver door meaning that it is much safer for me to pump gas alone because it is much harder for an unwanted person to enter my vehicle. I can pump gas and stand directly next to the only unlocked door which will be easy to re-enter the vehicle and quickly lock. I feel safer having a driver side fuel door.
@@Pliko3some cars are made so that even if you turn the key in the door rather than using a fob, all the doors unlock at once. Some cars unlock the driver door with one turn and all doors with two turns. And some only do driver door regardless. Not every car is made the same.
I, almost exclusively, fill my tank at Costco gas stations and they have extra long hoses for their gas pumps that allow you to fill your tank regardless of what side your fuel door is on in relation to how you pull up to the pump. After using these for years, I can't imagine why everyone else doesn't do the same.
@@Prec1pitation I think they meant "I can't imagine why every gas station doesn't have extra long hoses" and not "I can't imagine why everyone else doesn't get gas at Costco"
I think the data collection may have had opportunity for an error. You just asked whether the fuel door was on the drivers side or passenger side. But in a left-hand-drive country, that data may be reversed. The question should have separately asked if it was a Left or Right hand drive car, and Left or Right hand fuel door. On Toyota's UK website and Toyota's German website, they both show a Yaris with a left-hand fuel door. That would be driver's side for a German driver, and Passenger side for a British driver. It's more likely for a manufacturer to keep the fuel door in the same location regardless of which side the steering column is on, as that would increase the complexity of the alternate assembly pattern, potentially requiring even more alternate parts to make the geometry work.
holy shit thats a good point. in addition, i wonder if he has the data showing which country people answering are from. He could than could than sort through it that way.
that's precisely why he used that phrasing... because "left" or "right" doesn't provide the positional relationship to the person doing the filling. whereas "passenger" or "driver's" bypasses that entire question
Yeah in the UK most of the VWs I've seen have the fuel door on the driver's side, and the proportion of viewers from the UK, Australia, Japan, India and South Africa is probably roughly equal to the amount of driver's side doors in the data.
Came here to say the same, I was waiting for us in the UK being mentioned. But, I did expect there to be more. Maybe there was and it didn't make it into the video. I like my Fuel door being on my Passenger side, but also, I don't wait in a cue if I don't have to, I drive up to any free pump.
I watch all of your channels and love them all. I like this video very much, but not because of fuel doors. As an educator is very interesting to watch how the train of thoughs works for a very intelligent person. Teachers must watch this.
I'm glad you specified CAR fuel doors, because as someone who drives box trucks and uhauls week after week, I appreciate when the fuel door is on the driver's side because then I can more easily gauge when to stop, on top of not having to walk all the way around the truck. For me, driver's side is absolutely the CORRECT side.
The driver's side of passenger vehicles is correct for the same reason, and I buy cars specifically for the location of the fuel door. I wanna see where to stop. I've never run out of gas before in my 43 years of life, so roadside filling isn't a concern.
Yes, and if the made the hose long enough to not have to park so close, then there's more door space, or like, make the who thing always align so we can fully drive the front part of the vehicle ahead of the pump so there's space to get out.
I formerly worked for an environmental firm that had a bunch of gas stations for clients. In my experience with them, the vast majority of dispensers (what most people call the pump) that were hit by a car and for fuel hoses that were forgotten about and then ripped off as the car drove away with them still inserted were done by cars that had the fuel door on the passenger side. There are just so many people who cannot judge the position of the outside of their cars. The story I heard so many times about the fuel dispenser hose is that they forgot about it when they went into the station to use the bathroom or buy something. It is so much easier to forget that the hose is still attached to your car when you don't walk past it before going into the car.
I have a "willing to feel slightly uncomfortable on this hill" opinion about leaving the filler unattended. But maybe that's just because of the number of times I've witnessed fuel spilling all over the ground because someone walked away from a pump with a dodgy release.
Wait, in the US does the hose still pump if you're not holding onto it?! In Australia you have to squeeze a thing, so you couldn't leave the hose unattended. How do you control the flow in the US to make sure it all goes in the car?
@@Respectable_UsernameIn the US, at most stations, there is a latch on that squeeze handle that lets you latch it down and it will keep filling without you holding it. The dispenser will stop when the tank is full because it detects the air - Steve Mould has a video about how that works. Surely, your pumps in Australia stop pumping when the car is full at least! I can see leaving the latch off for safety reasons - and some stations here do.
@@Respectable_UsernameMost north american pumps have a clip that holds it in the pump position as well as an auto shut off when the pump detects the tank is full. I never use it though as it just feels wrong to walk away...
@@PaulSpeed42 this 100 times over. Even if the release is perfectly fine, I've seen them splash back if the hose isn't sitting right. And I've even seen a hose fall right out, spilling gallons of gas all over the car and floor before the emergency stop could be pressed.
As someone that does spreadsheet stuff for fun it was slightly frustrating to see him say it was hard. Like maybe it was because of the data set, but I kept thinking why are we sorting and scrolling when we can do a pivot table
My plug in hybrid (Honda Clarity) has both doors on the driver's side lol. Charge port door on the front drivers side (very convenient for pulling into a garage, and having the charger mounted on the front wall. a rear mounted charge port would suuuck for that i don't like backing in to spots) and fuel door on the rear drivers side.
Love everything about this video. Everyone thinks I’ve pulled into the gas station wrong because of my passenger side tank is so unusual but I LOVE it especially at one way gas stations because my lane never has a line!!😂
One aspect I don't remember you mentioning is here in New Jersey it is illegal to pump your own gas. And having the fuel door on the driver's side makes it easier for the attendant to fill up your car and take your money. It's less walking for them. Big edge case, but one that exists.
It created thousands of more jobs. It's likely also because so much of New Jersey is or was a tourist state that it was easier to have locals watch over the pumps.
You're the last holdout since Oregon recently changed their law. Before that happened, if I happened to be driving down the US West coast, I would make sure to time my fuel stops to avoid having to get gas in Oregon. I hate having to wait for somebody to eventually get around to me. I want to drive in, get gas, and get gone :)
i've driven both, and i definitely want it on the drivers for saftey reasons. being able to quickly get in and out of my car, especially when i'm alone at a gas station is really important.
If you are alone at a gas station, why would you need to get in your car quickly? A bear attack? **this is sarcasm** I assume what you mean is when you are not with someone you know. And from this statement I assume you are a woman. Concerned about presumably men at the gas station.
Hadn't even thought of that, but now that you've mentioned it, I would definitely be uncomfortable having to walk all the way around my car as opposed to being right by the door. I will have to consider this whenever I buy a car now.
As an avid motorcyclist, fuel cap location is important, as most bikes have a side stand that leans the bike left. My Yamaha bagger puts the cap on the right side, when it's leaned left, the filler neck is on the high side of the tank. This is good. My Harley has the cap in the center of the tank, so when it leans left on the stand, the exhaust sticks out from the right, so you have to reach across the bike while trying not to burn your legs, or spill gas on the exhaust. I've learned to just back in perpendicular to the stall so the left lean is towards the nozzle. I also had a Suzuki Burgman that had a center stand and fuel door was on the floor. That worked well. Anyway, for passenger vehicles, I'm team passenger-side fuel door.
Interesting! I'm coming up on 150k miles of riding and all of my bikes (ok, so that's only 5) have had center fuel caps. Maybe it's a genre difference thing... they've all been sport-touring, except for one dual-sport. All Japanese. Anyway, I tend to pull up with the pump on my left, out of habit from driving cars with gas doors on the driver's side. And I usually fill while sitting on the bike & holding it up. If I fill on the side stand, I'll pick the bike up for the last little bit. It just seems...safer, I guess. Hate those pumps that stop and then spit gas out when you move to replace them.
why the hell would you stand on the right side of the bike when filling up??? plus if you really wanna maximize the fuel, you can sit on the bike after you start fueling and balance is upright.
The side stand was always on the side the fuel tank petcock was on so that when you rest it on the side stand more fuel will slosh over the hump in the bottom of the tank (were the frame is) to the side where it drains (by gravity).
My 2016 Toyota Corolla has the fuel door on the driver's side. I find it much more convenient. I also don't perfectly line the fuel door with the pump. I always pull up a bit further to give myself space to get out of the car. I'm disabled (all four limbs have issues, but the damage to my legs is what's relevant here). That's a long way to walk all the way around to the rear passenger side. With the door on the driver's side, I often don't even need my cane. My leg brace is enough to help me walk in a tight space like that, especially since I can grab the top of the car or lean against it if needed for the few steps I need to take. Even if the door isn't lined up well, the hose is long enough to reach. Also, the ability to finish pumping and immediately get into my car while avoiding any unnecessary time outside around people who might try to *shudders* strike up a friendly and pleasant conversation is beyond valuable to me.
As someone who STILL has her first car, a 1988 Volvo 240, this resonates hard. Love hearing people talk about their owning of a Volvo 240 over the years. Great car.
1972 Chev Impala had it at the rear under the license plate. I worked at a gas station (full serve) where a woman came in and couldn't find where to put the gas (her repair shop gave her a 72 impala as a loaner). The guy working with me was completely stumped, and came over feeling embarrassed and asked me if I could find it. My parents had one when we were young so I knew exactly where it was. I said to him, "come here, watch this..." and I pulled the little metal curved thumb pull under the license plate, and I watched the guy's mind blow LOL. 🤣
If you really want to blow someone's mind, find the fuel door on a 55-57 Chevy BelAir. The tail light on the fin is the door and the whole tail light swungs out.
How cars are adapted for countries that drive on the opposite side of the road is interesting in itself. Some manufacturers make two versions that are basically mirror images of each other, whereas others move the steering wheel assembly across and everything else is still as it was (as much as possible).
Why not make a car that's switchable? The steering wheel doesn't have to be mechanically connected to the wheels. It can just be a funny-shaped joystick controlling the steering system via some wires. That would allow for a design where you can take out and swap the steering wheel and glove box when you reach the border between countries that drive on different sides of the road.
@Roxor128 Are you suggesting a drive by wire system? I think Tesla is the only manufacturer who's implemented such a system. Biggest downsides would be electronic failure making you unable to steer, and higher cost from a more complex system. It's totally doable, but the benefits aren't that great that it makes it worth the change.
@@che3se1495 Sure. Everything comes with powered steering these days, and fly-by-wire is good enough for the aerospace industry, and they have much stricter safety standards than the automotive one.
@@Roxor128 Yes the aerospace industry has much higher standards, but they're also used to paying extra for parts made to those standards. Would you pay double for a new car with ultra-reliable drive by wire steering?
i am just over 5 minutes in and i am realizing that my opinions on the placement of the fuel door are much more intense than i realized. the two reasons you brought up are exactly my reasons. trying to avoid bumping the pylon is very annoying and some are way too close to the car and make getting out difficult. but more importantly i have run out of fuel on the side of the road, on an off ramp of a busy highway to be specific, and i VERY MUCH wished my fuel door was on the passenger side. that situation was stressful enough without also having to worry about potentially getting hit by a car. getting those 1 or 2 gallon gas cans to work is so much harder when you have to do it from an awkward angle while you stay as close to your car as possible.
I think someone else kind of alluded to this, but there is a safety advantage to the driver's side fuel door. When you pull up to the pump to refuel, you get out on a side of that is protected from other cars pulling into the station. Thus, you are less likely to get hit by a driver whose attention is on lining up their own fuel filler. Roadside emergencies are probably a higher risk situation, but refueling is going to happen much more often, so it all probably balances out.
I dont think it balances out at all considering most people dont run their cars out of gas but everyone that drives an ICE car has to get gas sometimes multiple times a week. I would much rather be protected when filling than have it on the other side where I MIGHT run out of gas.
I like having it on the driver's side because I don't want to open my door into the traffic in the gas station. I feel like a lot of people forget how to drive the second they enter a parking lot/leave a road. I do acknowledge the safety factor of avoiding traffic when filling your car on the side of the road, but that's a lot less common than filling at the station.
I understand in theory why it's better to have them be different, with the example you showed. But in my experience that ends up not being what happens. Instead people pull up from both sides of the gas station, so then you have cars facing each other, and awkward situations where there's nowhere to go depending on which side of the car your fuel door is. (I'm not sure I'm explaining this very well but like. Cars are facing different directions, and there's nowhere to go, and it's all very awkward.) And I think if all cars had fuel doors on the same side, it would eliminate that in the sense that everyone would have one correct side of the pump to go on, so no cars would be on the same side facing different directions.
I go almost exclusively go to places like Sam's Club and Costco, where the lanes are all one-way. What if every gas station adopted this arrangement, where all cars are pointed in the same direction? Traffic flows quite smoothly even when it's super busy at the Sam's gas stations.
Wait what? You have free for all gas stations in the US? They're all one way in the UK, or at least like 98% of them are! Sounds like a nightmare when things get busy.
@@skylerwitherspoon As someone else in the UK that is crazy to me. Ours are so narrow, not only are they one way, but you can't even overtake someone if they finish first sometimes. I find though, that the hoses are soo long I can just pull them over my car and fill from both sides.
You just need to drive a Miata, Hank! Especially an older one from before 2006. You can pull up to the pump any way you like, and the hose will almost always be able to reach the fuel door! On account of how small the Miata is.
Yep lol I drive a Z3 and it's on the passenger side (which is aesthetically nicer imo) but I could pull up either way. What's disturbing me is the amount of people driving big cars who are commenting that they don't know the size of their own car or if they're going to hit something. Jesus Christ people learn where your wheels and bumpers are so you don't like hit and kill a cyclist!
My first car was a 1991 Volvo 240! I’m a 2000s baby but I loved that car. I can’t believe I share that in common with you Hank! Fantastic and unique vehicle
Subaru driver here, and honestly I'm surprised _you're_ surprised. Like, aside from all the jokes and memes it's one of the most popular car brands *in the world!* I recommend Subaru to everyone I meet who goes shopping for a car and GUESS WHAT The fuel door is *on the passenger side!*
@@frankhooper7871 Admittedly I might feel some perception bias as I live in one of the biggest Subaru _markets_ in the world but they're still no slouches! And... clearly very popular among Hank Green enjoyers. We have data to support _that_ fact!
This may depend on where it's made (Subaru America or Subaru Japan), for me driving a Subaru Outback in Australia it's on the driver's side, but we're also right hand drive here.
I did a project where I learned about Subaru’s add campaign in the 90s, and I believe that Hank’s audience skews female/queer more than the average population. So of course there are more Subaru owners - they’re in his demographic.
@@alxk3995It certainly does when you're in freezing windy weather, and your vehicle is your only wind-break. Steals the heat straight out of your soul.
I'm confused how taking 4 or 5 more steps around the car is an issue? Are you getting back in your car because you shouldn't do that for electric charge circumstances.
@@iamjamesmix i'm guessing they are, yeah. A lot of people don't really dress for the weather when they go out in the winter in their cars, which could definitely make standing outside for a minute or two untenable. In my experience, people who live through their cars can often be very intolerant of any discomfort from the weather.
mine is on the passenger side but i really appreciate the little arrow on my fuel gauge that tells me what side it's on literally every time i get gas (i drive a volkswagen, in north america)
This information completely blew my mind, and I now need to check my fuel gauge to see if it has it. I have to stop and think about it every single time I pull in for gas. Especially now since I've had a car for two years with a driver's side fuel door, after 17 years with a passenger-side one, but even with my old car, even after 17 years, I still had to think about it and visualize my memories of being at fuel pumps every time to get it right!
@ i got my license super late (35) and this, my first car a year ago (at 36!) so i am extra thankful for it because i am also so new to getting gas that my brain is very insistent i don't fuck this up haha i did have the experience that if i have exactly 1/4 of a tank it hides the arrow just enough that i can't see it, truly a devastating moment of having to get back in my car and turn around at the gas station so now i refill at 1/3rd instead 😅
@@binaryrainbows -- Filling your tank at 1/3 instead of 1/4 can be better for your car, too! When your fuel is quite low, the fuel pump has to work much harder. Stressing the fuel pump that way over and over can wear out the pump faster. (At least that's what my mechanic taught me when my car's pump needed replaced.)
@@minereallyit's not really that the pump has to work harder, but most of them are cooled by the fuel in the tank, so when it gets too low, the pump gets hotter and wears out more quickly :)
My first car, a 1995 Chevy Corsica had a passenger side fuel door. Everything we’ve had since has a driver’s side one. I live in a kinda crappy part of town so there were times I did feel weird having to lock up and walk around the car to fuel up with the Corsica. You do make a fair point with people more accurately lining things up with the driver’s side fuel door and the dangers of running out of fuel on the road.
This video feels like my ADHD. By which I mean that it's an interesting topic. An odd topic. A topic nobody cares about, and yet, it's interesting. It's worth the time spent on the topic. But also a waste of time. All at once. And that, I feel, is a great deal about what my life is like. And I love it. I'm here for this.
@@ryanwritingsongs It's not exclusively ADHD at all, you are right and correct. But, at the same time, I feel like this video exemplifies much about my life in some strong ways. lol. I've spent >15 years wasting time on reddit - far far too much time - because there's always something new and different and it feeds my curiosity like nothing else. It is a mildly harmful addiction. I am a sponge for knowledge. Now, I may not retain it, but I learn it. lol. Still not an ADHD-exclusive by any means. But I think as the other two who replied might help my point - like.... it's something that is very much how a lot of us are, not to say only us.......... hard to articulate it. One of those stupid "IYKYK" things because I'm not explaining it well, sorry. So not exclusive by any means, but, like, this is how my life works and this video made me feel like home, if that makes sense. lol
I prefer the fuel door on the driver side. It's easier to see how far you are and when you are pulling out you get a better view of the barriers that are next to the pump.
This. Plus you get 1+ tons of metal between you and moving vehicles at all times as extra insurance against idiots. Metal can be cleaned up and repaired fairly easily, meat not so much.
So you're saying you're a bad driver? You should be able to equally like up your car no matter what side it's on or else you are not a very good driver and pedestrians and other motorists driving on your passenger side should watch out! Because apparently you don't know where the right side of your car is....
I think this is a matter of perspective. Younger generations are going to find a touch screen with every function of the car on it in one place. Easier and simpler to use then buttons spread out all over the dashboard looking down on the dash searching for one button out of dozens. Could arguably be more distracting than looking at the screen directly in line with the windshield
Drove a U-Haul a few weeks ago (Ford) and the fuel door was on the driver's side. VERY helpful for being able to see where I was lined up when stopping at gas stations.
Don't get him started. We'll get a 20 minute video on which direction the fuel door opens. And, in addition, is there a cockpit fuel door release switch? Now you've done it.
@ The fuel door must open one way though. The other way would allow wind to catch under the door and potentially cause damage. It’s already bad enough for cars that come with shells over the fuel door (as opposed to one solid piece). Those shells would fly off at car washes all time. Release latch though? That just depends on how willing people are to steal your fuel. Then the style of latch vs button, mechanical linkage vs electric… Oh my, what have I done?
Hank I can't stress enough that I deeply care about which side the fuel (filler/gas/gas cap/...) door is on, and also it's critically important to me that it's on the driver's side and not the passenger side.
also, Hank what if I run out of gas while I'm in the left lane of a highway and have to pull onto the median. Am I not then endangered by your passenger side fuel door chicanery? hashtag gotcha etc
The passenger side is the only acceptable side, because it makes it easier to make my passenger get out and pump gas if it is raining or unpleasant outside. People who want it on the driver's side are obviously under the influence of Satan and someone should notify the Vatican to start a new Inquisition. May god have mercy on your soul.
Now this is the content I subscribed for. Shedding light on questions I've been asking myself for years. Thank you sir. -some driver of a 2003 nissan with the fuel door on the passenger side..
Putting the door on the driver’s side means you can stay closer to the gas pump. As mentioned, this is convenient for not having to walk around. There are two other advantages though: safety and rain. Some gas stations are designed (or at least used) with three “lanes” between each row of pumps: two lanes for pumping gas and one in the middle for vehicles getting in and out. If you need to put your vehicle’s passenger side next to the pump, that means your squishy human body is exposed to the center lane. Even worse, if someone hits your car’s door (the real door, not the fuel door) as you’re getting out, you might become the meat jam in a metal (or plastic or fiberglass or whatever) sandwich. On the ends, you have to contend with vehicles circling around or going to the c-store, but you sometimes also have to contend with rain. The pump itself is usually covered these days, so if you’re exiting the vehicle on the pump side, you’re more likely to be under the roof.
I came in the comments just to say this. If your car does not have a fuel door side indicator - it isn't only wrong, its also illegal because that indicator is mandatory in EU.
@@guss77 I'm living in europe, I have two cars, a french station wagon from 2008 and a german sedan from 2013 neither of those has a triangle on the fuel indicator.
Team driver's side here. For security reasons, if you pull into a gas station at night, you don't want to have to walk around and stand on the passenger side. Also in the winter, you can get back in your car without losing sight of the nozzle. Hank, if you're always banging your door into the pillar, you're pulling in too close to the pump. It will reach if you park a little farther away.
The fuel filler is often one one side or the other for technical engineering reasons and is not an arbitrary descision. For example, the exhaust most commonly exits on the passenger rear corner of the car, because that keeps it the furthest away from the driver. This means that the exhaust pipe usually runs down the passenger side of the car. Often, the gas tank has to be on the opposite side to keep it away from the hot exhaust. Thats why my f150 has the fuel filler(s) on the drivers side. However, my 1974 Jeep CJ7 has the exhaust running down the drivers side, because the AMC engine used in the Jeep has the exhaust exit on the drivers side of the engine. So the fuel filler is on the passenger side.
@@jaredlancaster4137 Zero, actually. Old VAGs, one Fiat, Subaru and a Mazda. Though now that I think of it and checked some generic pictures from the web, my parents briefly had a Mitsubishi Lancer from around '86 and a Mazda 626 around '88, which both had the exhaust on the passenger side and the fuel door on the drivers side. I'm not sure about the Honda CR-V they have at the moment.
@@HulluJanne i've had both, and whenever it's a single-side and a side fuel door, the fuel door has always been on the opposite side from the exhaust. obviously with a dual exhaust, it's a moot point, but most of my cars have had single-side exhaust. i think i've seen some that have a single-side-same-side but nowhere near as common as single-side-opposite-side.
The second argument for having the gas door on the right side of the vehicle is a valid one! I was in a Ford F-250 with a mentor of mine and we were pulling a trailer, but the truck ran out of gas or had some issue with the fuel pump that caused the engine to die while we were pulling out of a lot. Unfortunately with how this road was structured we got stuck on the on-ramp to a decently busy highway, with not a lot of space on the side of the road for a big F-250 to squeeze into, and filling the gas tank that close to the road does pose more than a few safety hazards! Edit for clarification: It was a one-lane on ramp and we pulled to the right of the road. The gas door was on the left. Hence the potential hazard
I don't particularly pay attention to the side of the fuel door when purchasing a car, and it just so happens that so far each time I got a new car it switched side. Having it on the passenger's side is indeed a little more convenient, in that it's easier to stop at the station without any effort on placing the car so that it would be possible to open the driver's door without hitting anything and with enough clearance to get in/out of the car. But there is a safety benefit to having the door on the driver's side. The lanes on gas stations tend to be relatively tight. If you do everything on the driver's side, you're never in the way of another vehicle. If the fuel door is on the passenger's side, though, it means that you need to open the driver's side, and get out of the vehicle, on what amounts to a very busy, sometimes very very busy, though slow moving, road. Actually, same thing when you also move along the back (or front) of the car, because other cars try to position on pumps right before/after you. So it's more like parking and walking on a very busy road where everyone constantly parks next to you. Is that risk really significant, and do such accidents happen? I don't know. But it certainly takes more attention to timing and movement, and requires more care. Plus, practically all gas stations have enough roofing to cover the area right next to the pumps from rain. The other side of the car, a lot rarer. So if you need to fuel in the rain, trivial where the fuel door is on the driver's side, not necessarily so when it's on the passenger's side. Admittedly, these are technically issues with station design, and changing all gas stations to have wider lanes, with more spacing between pumps (so a lot less pumps or the need for a much larger area station for the same amount of pumps/cars), and to have a larger/full roof over everything (more costly, more maintenance and possible drainage issues), would solve these and make passenger's side fuel door a clear winner. But that's not the situation as it is now, nor likely to change in the future, so driver's side fuel door is, at least for me, a slightly better alternative.
Tbh you are right. I used to live in a big city with not a lot of room and very small gas stations and it was like playing Tetris trying to fill my car
The vast majority of fuel stations I have seen here in Europe were fully roofed. The only ones without roofs I can remember were some tiny ones in the middle of nowhere in Iceland, with only 2 pumps, so it's just 1 island and a billboard, not even a building for a cash register, it's self service only.
Yeah as someone who drives sitting on the passenger’s side, my first thought was shouldn’t you be asking “right or left” not just “driver’s side or passenger’s”?
@@dyhidrogenmonoxide What does "drives sitting on the passenger's side" even mean? You sit in the passenger seat but lean over to operate the wheel and pedals? If you're driving there (and the instruments are on that side) it's by definition the drivers side.
Yeah, also platfroms reuse parts so often if one car from a manufacturer makes a major structural choice others will as well. Also Japan drives on the left, which explains the Japanese manufatcurer bias.
@@TheRealBrit I think it's a misunderstanding. By definition, the steering wheel is always on the driver's side. I think what DHMO means is that he drives sitting on the STARBOARD side of the vehicle, rather than the PORT side like I do in the USA.
Mark Roger is Awesome! We are ordering this for our 12 yo boy for Christmas! I personally love his video on the squirrel obstacle course. Fabulous Gus ❤.
Back in the 80s, they were in the back which was the best. It's actually the law in Germany that the fuel door be on the right side. This is if if you run out of gas on the autobahn, and then have to fuel up with a gas can, you will be opposite from traffic when fuelling.
I have been driving for over 50 years. Let me think hard about how many times I have run out of gas during those 50 years. Zero. That's right, I have never run a vehicle out of gas. Even if the gas gauge were to stop working, I would simply fill up every 100 miles until I had a chance to get the gas gauge fixed.
Try to get gas before you fall below 1/4 of a tank remaining. Most cars these days have the fuel pump inside the tank, and it uses the fuel itself to help cool the pump. If it gets too low, your pump has to run hotter, which also means more likely to fail.
When I was a kid, there used to be stories of cars being burgled (stolen purses and such) from the driver's door when the driver (more likely a lady when purses were in the story) were on the opposite side of the car pumping gas, typically looking at the fuel pump rather than paying attention to their car (typically SUV types, I'd imagine with darkened windows).
For me, a disabled person, I like that the fuel filler is on the left side of my Ranger. It makes things a lot easier when I don't have someone with me to help. Also, I have never in my 30-someodd years of driving run out of gas. I consider 1/4 tank to be "empty" and I fill up near there all the time.
That's fair, assuming your car's in a place where "left side" means driver's side, I know I have friends IRL who'd have similar opinions if they drove (one fun thing Hank didn't cover in the video is that cars can be left-hand-drive or right-hand-drive and maufacturers don't move the filler cap location to move between markets, so "left side" doesn't actually unambiguously map onto either "drivers side" or "passenger side")
@@Hannah_Em My US centrist bias showed through in my comment. I did, indeed, mean driver's side when I said "left" And in general you are correct - vehicle manufacturers try to change as little as possible between LHD and RHD variants of their cars... and now I want to get my hands on the service manual for a RHD Ford Ranger, just to see what's different. (And fun fact, the 5th generation of Rangers, from 2011 to present, were developed and designed in Australia FOR the Australian market, so it was originally designed to be RHD, and then converted for LHD for the Americas and other markets!)
@@DobieTanpaw yeah, most RHD delivered cars here in Australia have the fuel filler on the left hand or "Passenger" side. Domestic production usually had it on the Driver's or "Right hand side"... but sometimes there's a mix. Then you get into the weeds of the fuel filler icon telling you which side the filler is on, so you rock up to the correct bowser :D
I drive a 5th Gen Camaro SS, the fuel door is on the passenger side. It works well for 2 door cars since they have longer doors and, like Hank said, it’s easier to get in and out at the pump. Another thing that may be of interest is the Jaguar XJ6 in the 1970s; the car had a fuel cap on both sides of the car because it had two separate fuel tanks. There was a switch on the dash that the driver could flip that switched which fuel tank the engine would use.
Thank goodness for that little arrow indicator on the fuel gauge: as I don't own a car, every time I drive, it's an unfamiliar car (a friend's or a rental). If not for that arrow, I'd have to check every single time. (I _do_ have to find the fuel door release lever every time, but those are usually easy to spot.) *Team driver's side,* here, so I can sit in the car if there's rain or snow or cold wind, whilst keeping an eye on the pump. As many others have pointed out, adding a liter or two from a jerry can by the side of a highway is a vanishingly rare case, only takes like 15 seconds, and shouldn't be optimized for. But I do understand not wanting to ding the driver's door on the concrete bollards. It's a stronger argument than I was expecting.
@KristenK78 What the hell? Is nothing sacred? Did they, like... just borrow the dashboard lights arrangement from another vehicle and somehow _not know_ what the arrow means?
Genuine question: How do you fill up your car if you're sitting inside it? Do the gas pumps where you live not require you to squeeze the nozzle to dispense? I am actually so curious about this haha
@lilypetal You have to squeeze the lever, but there's a spring-loaded metal piece you move into place with your finger that holds the lever open in any of 3 levels (flow speeds). When the tank is full, the pump nozzle detects this and the pump stops abruptly enough to shake loose the metal tab, retracting the lever automatically. You do have to stay near the pump and keep an eye on it, in case this mechanism fails to stop the flow, but this almost never happens.
@@ps.2My mind is officially blown!! I will need to check the pumps here for that lol. I struggle with muscle weakness so this could save me some pain! Thank you for answering.
As someone who used to supervise a gas station, from what I’ve seen there are many more fuel doors on the right on imported vehicles. Especially higher end vehicles. Fords, Chevrolets, Dodges, and other US/Canada made cars are usually driver’s side. Costco is also one of the few stations that have extendable hoses, that can reach either side of almost every vehicle. Edited bc I realized I had it backwards, and was thinking which side of the pump they park on, not which side of the car it’s on.🤦♂️
my ford was on the right side.. my toyota was on the left. i bought my toyota specifically because it was on the driver's side - and it had heated seat, a sunroof and a back up cam, but also because the gas was on the left!
Yeah, there are definitely exceptions, but the vast majority of US brands have theirs on the left side. Again, I think the biggest factor for a lot of them was whether or not they were luxury or at least higher end vehicles.
I only had 2 cars in the US, a Pontiac G6 (passenger side) and a ford Mustang (drivers side). I had assumed that it was somewhat consistent between Ford and GM (and that they were opposite each other) until I learnt that the engineer who invented the little arrow next to the pump symbol worked for Ford and was annoyed because he was driving random pool cars and wouldn’t know which side to pull up to.
I would have to say that having the filler door on the opposite side of the driver does cause more drive offs with the pump still attached to the car. Having the gas door on the same side that you get in and out is more likely for you to realize that you are still plugged in before you drive off.
I'm in Jersey and mine is on the driver side. I like it this way since we don't pump the gas, it allows the attendant to come to my driver window rather than me having to talk through the passenger window.
as owners of two subarus, my wife and i both have fuel doors on the passenger side and my wife loves it! she always mentions being able to slip through costco gas faster because we have the ideal fuel door location. my wife is right there with you on thinking about fuel doors more than average folk haha
My first car had it on the driver's side while my last two had it on the passenger side. It's not a dealbreaker but it definitely screws with my mind having to drive on the left side of the pump. Not sure if Nissan put a lot of thought into that decision, they decided to put the voice command button right next to the cruise control button on the steering wheel after all.
Hey Hank. Jaguar XJ6 models from the 80s at least, have saddle tanks with a small tank on both the passenger and driver sides with fuel doors on both sides!
It also used to be common for pickup trucks to have an optional second fuel tank, so you'd have a fuel door on one side of the bed, and a filler neck just sticking out of the fender on the other side.
@@mpf1947 that depends on the year and brand. I daily drive an '85 Chevy so there are fuel doors on both sides. Late 70's early 80's was a transitional period for GM where some had just the filler neck and later started getting doors, even seen a few like you described with one of each (perhaps a dealer add on?). 80's/90's Ford pickups also tended to have both fuel doors on one side.
This is true of all large Jaguar sedans (i.e. excluding the Mk II and its descendants) until 1987. I presume this was originally done for convenience (i.e. an acknowledgment that their biggest markets, USA and UK, drive on opposite sides of the road), and later essentially a matter of tradition. In my experience (my parents had '59 Mk IX and then an '87 XJ6) it wasn't actually all that convenient, because there wasn't a crossfeed function or a 'both' setting like in an airplane, so you had to pull in on the correct side of the pump for whichever tank was empty (and be prepared to pass the hose over to the other side of the car if you were fueling up for a road trip). My '71 Mercedes Benz L508D truck also has two tanks and two filler necks, but because the second tank was an option, there is no selector valve at all; it just draws fuel from the passenger side tank and the bottom of the optional driver side tank is permanently plumbed into the bottom of the passenger side tank in what I'd call a 'gravity crossfeed' arrangement if it was an airplane. (If they were plumbed and selectable separately like a Jaguar sedan, I'd have converted the second tank to waste cooking oil years ago!)
My 1971 British car (Triumph Spitfire) has the fuel door on top of the rear panel. Making it that way allowed them to use same base as a RHDrive (UK) or a LHDrive (US)
Hank, my friend, gas station forecourts are designed so you can approach the pump from either side. Most even have multiple entrances. If your gas flap is on the opposite side to the pump, you just drive to the other end of the court, and then approach a pump from that side.....
I don't know about the US, but gas station pumps in germany have fuel hoses long enough to reach around if your gas flap is on the opposite side of the pump. Having driven a mix of mostly japanese and french cars since the 90s, where the french where passenger sided and the japanese driver sided, my main concern while approaching a gas station always was and still is: When there is a free pump, I'll take it, no matter the side. 😅
@@unvillage It's the same in Aotearoa, where I'm from, but a lot of people are uncomfortable parking very close to the pumps, so I often see people with larger vehicles park too far for the hose to reach the other side of the vehicle. It's me, I'm the 'a lot of people' 🥲
What I am learning from this comments section is that most people are terrible drivers who are afraid and anxious at all times in normal traffic situations lol.
Car enthusiasts like to mod and drive Subarus. I think the WRX is most popular in the ricer community when it comes to modded Subarus. However, the Subaru BRZ with the boxer engine is a pretty sweet looking car. It's also the Toyota 86 and there's a Scion version, too. They're all basically the same car.
I generally pull past the cement barriers in order line the filler door up with the pump more directly, so I can't say I've really had an issue with my driver's side door hitting them. I've owned cars that do both and I definitely prefer driver's side.
@@koalactrl Allows you to slice and dice sums and counts by the values in other columns. You could count answers for each side for each manufacturer, for example.
I live in Europe. In my whole adult life I had driven a few cars and had to fill up most of them and only once did I have to do this on the driver side - it was a rental Ford Transit. The issue you mentioned about having space to open the driver's door while at the same time lining up the filler door close to the pump was mure of a headache than I would have thought. I think that the safest and more convenient option is fuel door on the passenger's side - no door-bashing the pump, safer for roadside refills, and exhaust on driver's side - farther from sidewalk and opposite from fuel-adjacent devices. I also passionately hate cars with exhaust on the passenger side or both, because that's where you tend to stand if on a bicycle if in traffic, if you can't pass the car in front of you.
It’s good that the gas hoses can stretch across your car if need be. Also, most gas stations around here have multiple entrances, so you may not pull up in the same direction as others. This would help combat the all-one-sided fuel doors conundrum you brought up.
And regardless of how many entrancea they have, many still have enough space outside the pump aisles to go around the outside, if you need to come into a pump from the other way.
I think the argument for slamming your door is actually stronger for putting it on the driver side. if it's on the passenger side then your door faces other cars, meaning if you slam it into something, it's gonna be another person's car. also there's a higher chance of you keeping your door open and someone driving too fast and braking it off.
@@somitomi Why would he not mention gas station traffic? If the extremely rare case of someone being hit while filling with a gas can on the side of a highway is a reason for the passenger side being superior... Then the driver side is even better because you would ALWAYS be walking out into gas station traffic EVERY TIME. No way in hell you aren't at higher risk getting hit at the gas station where you are objectively on foot far more often
Australian driver here. I’ve had three cars, (70’s Chrysler, 80’s Mitsubishi, 90’s Toyota.) driven four makes of work van, (90’s Toyota, 2000’s Fiat, 90’s and 2010’s Fords.) and makes of work truck. (Ford Toyota, Isuzu, Mack, Daf from 80’s to 2010’s.) All cars and vans, and all single tank trucks had the filler/tank on the passenger (Left) hand side. These vehicles were made in Australia, South Africa, Japan, and Europe countries, so it’s not just an Australian thing.
7:42 Maybe you get to this by the end of the video, but I think on your poll you should have asked for left or right-hand side to account for people from other countries, as I'm sure they don't change where the fuel door is for their overseas models
As someone who immigrated to America, I have much stronger feelings about brake lights being used as indicators. I absolutely would not buy a car if it didn't have amber indicators.
You found my hill that I will get uncomfortable on! I prefer amber turn signals... but there is no effective difference to just using the red lights. The absolute worst case scenario caused by having red turn signals is that a driver behind slows down when they didn't actually need to. And assuming you are driving a safe distance behind the car, you don't even do that. I will, however, die on the hill that Kia, Hyundai, and several other manufactures are making unsafe cars with the turn signals mounted way down at the bottom of the bumper instead of at height with the headlights and brake lights. Mounting them that low makes them impossible to see for other drivers when changing lanes, and when stopped at lights.
@johngaltline9933 I mean the worst case scenario is someone interpreting you indicating, but you're actually putting on the brakes and causing an accident? There is an effective difference. I grabbed this source www.nhtsa.gov/... from a technology connections video from a couple years back. While I don't think the effect is overwhelming, they did conclude that a dedicated amber turn signal is safer. I am all for making it easier to communicate with other drivers, cyclists and pedestrians. I'll have to look at a picture of the Kia, but that sounds awful.
You know, even if two cars have their fuel doors on the same side, they can still park next to each other at the gas station. They just need to be facing different directions.
@@stumpingrimy1686 and we all kinda hate the gas station parking lot for feeling like the wild west.... right? the literal only reason i got comfortable in the lot was working there.
A lot of the petrol stations in the UK are one way. It would be really hard to find somewhere large enough to turn, then face on coming traffic. If there were a cue to get into the pump, you would get stuck facing the wrong way, not able to leave. You would have to block up two sets of pumps to turn round again. Sometimes it is so narrow that if you have a car in front of you, you can't leave till they do. I really hate getting stuck behind someone who, fills up, then goes into the shop to get a mico burger and coffee. I just have to sit there and wait for them to move their car.
I am firmly in the passenger side camp. Roadside safety of course. But also filling station safety. Less likely to risk static discharge igniting fumes if you have to walk around the car before you get close to the pump, and you are less likely to get back into the car if you have to walk all the way around (I know it sounds crazy to say that, but a main reason to be pro driver side is to avoid that very walk). The door ding argument is also valid, especially if you drive a car with long doors. But I do see the validity of the safety/escapability of pumping on the driver side, particularly for those that might be more vulnerable, or have to refuel in less savory locales.
Hank, thank you for this. I am binging Green brothers material for calm today.💙 Also, no joke, my son and I were building the chain reaction catapults from the crunchlabs box and watching Mark Rober videos. We googled to see if y'all had a collab going and didn't see anything. I was excited to see who sponsored today's content!
I was going to say they historically recognized queer folks in a time other companies didn't, and developed brand loyalty because of that. That effect may still persist, but its a bit old fashioned, i think.
VW Polo, fuel door is on the passenger side (right side for me). I couldn’t care less on which side the gass hose is, always works for me. The hoses are long enough and a Polo isn’t big either 😂
Gas pump hoses have breakaways in case people forget to hang up the nozzle before driving away. Maintenance has to be called and so there's a cost to fix it. After checking the camera footage for a licence plate, this cost goes to the customer's insurance. Anyway. Breakaways happen more often when the fuel door is on the passenger side because the driver, after popping in the store for a pepsi and a piss, comes back to their car and hops in with the hose out of sight and out of mind on the other side of their car. Yes, I manage a gas station and see this happen too often.
Yah, that and the small risk of a spill while filling is why I never leave the pump unattended. I'll wash my windows/mirrors/headlights while it's filling. Then I'll finish and hang it up _before_ I go in. Or if I have to pee, I'll go in first and _then_ fuel up.
My one drive off, I was road tripping through South Dakota, and that flicking spring prarie wind... blew doors open, knocked coffee mug off the roof (left a permanent dent to remember this drama by) and is my permanent distracting dementor. I thought I'd collected myself and my thoughts before driving off. But, no.😢 I owe you, Gus's Gas, Winner, SD. I'm still so sorry I broke away the breakaway gas filler hose.
10:16 Mini is owned by BMW, but it still makes an effort to maintain its British identity AFAIK. Jaguar and Land Rover are owned together by Tata, an Indian company, but they're still very British. I believe Aston Martin and McLaren are the only major British car makes that are still British-owned.
High end sports cars are the main thing for British companies. Lotus, McLaren, the Sports brands you mentioned, and then Bentley as well. which makes sense, small island, less need to drive in terms of geography, makes cars more of a luxury good, so the local manufacturers look to fill taht blue sky niche market for either Sports, high end luxury etc, rather than a everyday "around town" type of car.
@@RootBeerofDoom I mean, Lotus is owned by Geely (Chinese) and a Malaysian holding company while Aston Martin is still partially Mercedes owned (20%). Personally, I think it's less of an island culture aspect and more just small volume, performance or luxury cars are the only market where small brands can really exist. The UK used to put out plenty of econoboxes but there's very little prestige in making an economy car. Someone buying an Austin Metro for the part wouldn't care if it had been a Fiat Panda or a Ford Fiesta. Eventually the scale of international brands, plus a decade or so of mismanagement and legacy of poor reliability, and there was no point in trying in that market anymore. Without the backing of a global conglomerate, a small make can't compete with the likes of Ford, Stellantis, Honda, RNM, Hyundai, or Kia on price or scale. Prestige only matters for luxury and sport which just so happen also be a low volume market where British makes can actually compete in.
WIN FOR PASSENGER FUEL DOORS! Btw, LTP from my wonderful mom (applicable at least here in the EU): on your driver's dashboard, the side that displays your gas meter is the side that your fuel door is in (especially useful for people that rent or switch cars frequently) - no arrows necessary!
I have a few cars and they're a solid mix. 1975 Pontiac Ventura - under license plate 1987 Dodge W100 - Driver 1993 Suzuki Sidekick - Passenger 1995 GMC Vandura - Passenger. I prefer it on the passenger side for all the reasons you said.
My car, a BMW, has it on the passenger's side. I have often thought how nice it would be if the fuel door was on the driver's side, because then it would be easier to line up at the tanks (as mentioned) and always just be much more comfortable waiting for the fuel to fill up, even though I know we're SUPPOSED to stand by monitoring it. It also would make it easier to notice if I forgot to close the fuel door, not that I am someone that has done that (side-eye). However this video has made me appreciate having it on the passenger's side more.
@@Aryasvitkona In Ontario (Canada) those things that switch the pump on so you don't have to hold it are illegal, so you have to have your hand on the pump at all times. This confused my friend from Alberta when I gave him a ride and he offered to fill up.
As Aryasvitkona points out, it can be dangerous to get back in the car then get out and touch the pump, unless you give the static electricity that can build up getting in and out of the car by touching the metal of the car or something else that will take the charge. If you don't and fumes are present, they can explode, leading to a larger explosion or causing a fire.
Why are so many people readily admitting that they don't know how to drive their own cars? You can't "line up" the side of your car with a pump going 2mph? You could be multipl feet away from the pump and still be "lined up" If you genuinely cannot do that, how do you deal with sharing the road with bicycles or motorcycles? Do you just plow into every curb when you turn right?
extremely funny and relatable that Hank left what appears to be a check in full view of the camera and had to blur it in post
think he also did this in his last vlogbrothers video
@@JYT256 He did, now I have two nickles
More than that...it was also there in my most recent Vlogbrothers video. I create problems!!!
At least it's on his passenger side
@@hankschannel Keep in mind that not all blur is destructive! Black bars are usually better, no matter how annoying they might be, as there's no way to undo that on our end.
Don’t forget that some cars are sold in international markets where it may change from drivers to passengers side because the steering column (entire dash) may be flipped but the gas door stayed the same. For example: 2020 Jetta in North America has it on the passenger side but in the UK it’s on the drivers side WITHOUT it actually changing sides! 🎉🎉
This seems like it is actually the answer to most of the video.
my Chevy Cruze, all American, is on the passenger. it's the only car I've had this way.
@nivision the Chevy Cruze was actually originally designed in GM Korea in partnership with Suzuki.
this was my suspicion, and after seeing some of hanks graphs I lean heavily towards.
also... aside I wanted to blurt out.
car manufacturing in britain...
that'd be Land Rover, wouldnt it?
@@nivision and the chevy cruze was licenced out to holden as well?
as the holden Cruze (one of the last manufactured in australia?)
Put the fuel door on the roof. Refill my car like it's a B52.
I just spray my car all over with fuel and it absorbs it like a sponge.
😂😂😂
Then you wouldn't have to stop driving to refuel! 😮
That's called a motorcycle.
DROPPING SOME WISDOM IN THE COMMENTS!
My favorite fact about this video is that Hank had to actually drain his blinker fluid.
He didn’t realize that his car came with the blinker fluid auto refill feature. He was just fighting against him himself there.
Mine is on the driver's side and I like it because I feel safer if I'm alone getting gas and I can kinda enclose myself between my car and the pump.
I like the driver’s side for the same reason!
Paranoid much or do you live in a super sketchy area?
Maybe this is one of those internalized safety concerns for women? Because I totally thought the same thing…
@@HuyVYeah, I think it’s just a woman thing, we are all a little extra vigilant in our own unique ways.
from a personal safety perspective, if you're on the passenger side of the car filling gas, a car thief could sneak into the drivers seat when you turn around to put the pump back. don't have to be female to be worried... also why my father taught me to always take the keys with me when I pump gas when I was learning to drive (he grew up in NJ, I few up in rural NY where we didn't even lock the house when we left for the day)
"I am willing to experience some serious discomfort on this hill," is such a great line.
Yeah it's great
I want it on a shirt with a drawing of a hill & a lil guy on top.
It was never a really big thing until my daughter started driving by herself and she expressed that stopping at a sketchy gas station, she hated having to walk around the car and feeling so far from the driver side. She just made that as an offhanded remark, but the next time when she was looking for a car, I brought that up to her and she made sure the car had it on the driver side. She said she was surprised how much more secure it felt to her.
Also, have you looked at something Power BI for parsing that data? Its free and its a lot easier to click and select things. Import the table, drop a few objects on a page, drag the columns over, and then just click the fields or slide for ranges and it will filter the other graphics on the same page. Its really easy for doing what you had there.
A self defense expert I've watched in the past recommended that people stand by the back corner of their car away from the pump after getting the pump started so you can't get trapped as easily. Staying on the pump side means that 2 people can box you in really easily. But the thing he most advises is paying attention to your surroundings. Sometimes this is all it takes to discourage someone with ill intent from approaching you and even if it doesn't more time gives you more options to either escape or successfully defend yourself.
This is a good point, but in shouldn’t be a big deal as long as you don’t leave your car running while filling up
@@cleanname4439 You shouldn't be leaving the engine running in the first place while filling up. Pretty much every gas station has warning signs to shut your engine off while refueling.
@@Dhalin exactly
@@Dhalin I've always done this but never understood why when commercial, military, and race vehicles can refuel while the engine is on. If it's unsafe, make it safe and market cars with the new feature. Best I can figure is fumes at the fuel island are bad for folks.
Hi guys! Auto engineer in Detroit. This is hilarious you’re thinking about this - as we don’t even out this much thought.
The preference is drivers side for proximity and safety - lower risk to leave the pump in the car.
The main driver is that electrical wires are on the opposite side of the vehicle from the gas filler neck. Whoever designs their part of car first puts their parts on the left side - wires are expensive too so cost savings are everywhere.
I always thought it ended up being what market it was made for. I live in Australia we're left hand drive, American imports are all passenger side fuel doors - because its the same car (essentially) but with the steering column moved. Japanese cars, being native LHD are all driver side for us, because we import their models.
In the US some of the Japanese cars are just RHD converts of Japanese produced cars, so they have passenger side fuel doors. But a lot of Japanese carmakers make US-specific models in their US plants, so they're "natively" RHD and hence have driver side fuel caps.
@@smalltime0nope. Having driven many American made cars they are equally on port or starboard.
Hank, as another data lover, it hurts my soul to watch you scroll through the table one by one rather than a pivot table by who made car and count of submission time.
Scrolled way to far to find this comment 🙂
Hank, as amazing a guy he is, apparently hasnt' done two common things in his life yet. Use a pivot table, and fill up at Costco
hehe
Saaame, I want this data just so I can make all the pivot tables (and graphs)!
Thank you! I was yelling “PIVOT TABLES!” at the screen.
I was definitely yelling at my computer: "Can someone teach this man how to do a pivot table?"
I was almost shouting at my screen.. PIVOT!!!! It's like watching an intern... Make a PIVOT TAAAABLE!!!
0:53 "no one else cares" still makes a 14 minute video about the topic 😂 never change Hank
I'm curious if Mark Rober sponsored this video knowing it was about fuel doors or if he just generically sponsored "a video by Hank".
Me watching this as someone who gets peeved about it anytime I pull up to the gas station (I go to Costco tho and they do it for me 😂)
Literally not even a driver and I am unironically highly invested in this as someone who has thought about this too much. Hank is like an extension of my hyperfixations lol
Which is still about 14min less than what Technology Connections would have made it. 😅
Which is still about 14min less than what Technology Connections would have made it. 😅
My husband saw the title and we immediately ran to the video. Nearly everytime we go to the gas pump he complains that the fuel door should be on the passenger side so we aren't at risk of dinging the driver's side door. Thank you, Hank, he feels so validated 😂
So he’d prefer to ding the door, rather than get hit by someone driving through beside you.
@brianbarber5401 No, he would prefer to not hit the door on the gas pump. So he would prefer the fuel door be on the passenger side. As for cars driving through, just check no one is coming. He has had two Subarus prior to his current car, so he misses the fuel door being on the passenger side.
@@catherinepattersonmcelroy8336 to be fair he could also "just check to make sure he doesn't hit the door on something"
@@MarkFunderburk lol, he does. To be clear, his "complaints" are quite light-hearted, similar to Hank's emotions in the video.
guess you can never take passengers to the station then
I once owned a 1993 Chevy Caprice and the fuel filler was in the center behind the license plate that you flipped down to access it. My Uncle's 1990 Cadillac Brougham was the same setup. I actually like this feature because if there was a long line at the gas station I could quickly zip in the first spot that opened, it didn't matter which side, a rather convenient feature not found on any modern vehicles.
My 1978 cadillac Seville was the same. It was almost the same car as your uncles, they didn't change much in the 12 years between the cars.
I had a ‘75 Buick, same thing.
I drive a car with a fuel door on the drivers side and I prefer it because 95% of the time I am pumping gas alone and at odd hours because I work night shift. My car has a feature where to exit and enter my vehicle I only have to unlock the driver door meaning that it is much safer for me to pump gas alone because it is much harder for an unwanted person to enter my vehicle. I can pump gas and stand directly next to the only unlocked door which will be easy to re-enter the vehicle and quickly lock. I feel safer having a driver side fuel door.
Pretty sure you can unlock only the driver door on every single vehicle
@@Pliko3 Dunno. Mine unlocks all the doors when I pull the handle, but there might be a "switch" for that somewhere. I have not checked.
My last car was like that. One tap unlocked only the driver door. Two taps unlocked all doors. I wish all cars did that on their fobs.
@@Pliko3some cars are made so that even if you turn the key in the door rather than using a fob, all the doors unlock at once. Some cars unlock the driver door with one turn and all doors with two turns. And some only do driver door regardless.
Not every car is made the same.
I suspect mostly women think of this need for safety first. 😔
I, almost exclusively, fill my tank at Costco gas stations and they have extra long hoses for their gas pumps that allow you to fill your tank regardless of what side your fuel door is on in relation to how you pull up to the pump. After using these for years, I can't imagine why everyone else doesn't do the same.
I have very few Costco gas stations near me. The closest one is pretty out of the way for me.
@@Prec1pitationI think they might’ve meant why don’t all gas stations use long hoses
@@Prec1pitation I think they meant "I can't imagine why every gas station doesn't have extra long hoses" and not "I can't imagine why everyone else doesn't get gas at Costco"
Here (the Netherlands), all gas stations have extra long hoses. May be all of Europe
@@DanielledeVreede Maybe mainland Europe, but not Sweden 😒
I think the data collection may have had opportunity for an error. You just asked whether the fuel door was on the drivers side or passenger side. But in a left-hand-drive country, that data may be reversed. The question should have separately asked if it was a Left or Right hand drive car, and Left or Right hand fuel door.
On Toyota's UK website and Toyota's German website, they both show a Yaris with a left-hand fuel door. That would be driver's side for a German driver, and Passenger side for a British driver. It's more likely for a manufacturer to keep the fuel door in the same location regardless of which side the steering column is on, as that would increase the complexity of the alternate assembly pattern, potentially requiring even more alternate parts to make the geometry work.
this is the comment I was looking for... exactly! 💯
holy shit thats a good point. in addition, i wonder if he has the data showing which country people answering are from. He could than could than sort through it that way.
that's precisely why he used that phrasing... because "left" or "right" doesn't provide the positional relationship to the person doing the filling. whereas "passenger" or "driver's" bypasses that entire question
Yeah in the UK most of the VWs I've seen have the fuel door on the driver's side, and the proportion of viewers from the UK, Australia, Japan, India and South Africa is probably roughly equal to the amount of driver's side doors in the data.
Came here to say the same, I was waiting for us in the UK being mentioned. But, I did expect there to be more. Maybe there was and it didn't make it into the video. I like my Fuel door being on my Passenger side, but also, I don't wait in a cue if I don't have to, I drive up to any free pump.
I watch all of your channels and love them all. I like this video very much, but not because of fuel doors. As an educator is very interesting to watch how the train of thoughs works for a very intelligent person. Teachers must watch this.
I'm glad you specified CAR fuel doors, because as someone who drives box trucks and uhauls week after week, I appreciate when the fuel door is on the driver's side because then I can more easily gauge when to stop, on top of not having to walk all the way around the truck. For me, driver's side is absolutely the CORRECT side.
The driver's side of passenger vehicles is correct for the same reason, and I buy cars specifically for the location of the fuel door. I wanna see where to stop. I've never run out of gas before in my 43 years of life, so roadside filling isn't a concern.
*for box trucks and the likes
100%
Yes, and if the made the hose long enough to not have to park so close, then there's more door space, or like, make the who thing always align so we can fully drive the front part of the vehicle ahead of the pump so there's space to get out.
I hate when the diesel is one side and the DEF is on the other side. Only good if you’re at a truck stop.
I formerly worked for an environmental firm that had a bunch of gas stations for clients. In my experience with them, the vast majority of dispensers (what most people call the pump) that were hit by a car and for fuel hoses that were forgotten about and then ripped off as the car drove away with them still inserted were done by cars that had the fuel door on the passenger side. There are just so many people who cannot judge the position of the outside of their cars. The story I heard so many times about the fuel dispenser hose is that they forgot about it when they went into the station to use the bathroom or buy something. It is so much easier to forget that the hose is still attached to your car when you don't walk past it before going into the car.
I have a "willing to feel slightly uncomfortable on this hill" opinion about leaving the filler unattended. But maybe that's just because of the number of times I've witnessed fuel spilling all over the ground because someone walked away from a pump with a dodgy release.
Wait, in the US does the hose still pump if you're not holding onto it?! In Australia you have to squeeze a thing, so you couldn't leave the hose unattended. How do you control the flow in the US to make sure it all goes in the car?
@@Respectable_UsernameIn the US, at most stations, there is a latch on that squeeze handle that lets you latch it down and it will keep filling without you holding it. The dispenser will stop when the tank is full because it detects the air - Steve Mould has a video about how that works. Surely, your pumps in Australia stop pumping when the car is full at least! I can see leaving the latch off for safety reasons - and some stations here do.
@@Respectable_UsernameMost north american pumps have a clip that holds it in the pump position as well as an auto shut off when the pump detects the tank is full. I never use it though as it just feels wrong to walk away...
@@PaulSpeed42 this 100 times over. Even if the release is perfectly fine, I've seen them splash back if the hose isn't sitting right. And I've even seen a hose fall right out, spilling gallons of gas all over the car and floor before the emergency stop could be pressed.
Spreadsheets with Hank should be its own channel, wonderful stuff!
If you have a plug-in hybrid, like my prius, you have a door on each side 🎉
As someone that does spreadsheet stuff for fun it was slightly frustrating to see him say it was hard. Like maybe it was because of the data set, but I kept thinking why are we sorting and scrolling when we can do a pivot table
what is this channel if not Spreadsheets With Hank, really?
@@FosukeLordOfError Ahh the joys of a pivot table!
Would love access to the dataset to make a nice graph and give Hank more solid data to think about
My plug in hybrid (Honda Clarity) has both doors on the driver's side lol. Charge port door on the front drivers side (very convenient for pulling into a garage, and having the charger mounted on the front wall. a rear mounted charge port would suuuck for that i don't like backing in to spots) and fuel door on the rear drivers side.
Love everything about this video. Everyone thinks I’ve pulled into the gas station wrong because of my passenger side tank is so unusual but I LOVE it especially at one way gas stations because my lane never has a line!!😂
One aspect I don't remember you mentioning is here in New Jersey it is illegal to pump your own gas. And having the fuel door on the driver's side makes it easier for the attendant to fill up your car and take your money. It's less walking for them. Big edge case, but one that exists.
Whaaaaaat? You can't pump your own gas? What is this silliness?
It created thousands of more jobs. It's likely also because so much of New Jersey is or was a tourist state that it was easier to have locals watch over the pumps.
You're the last holdout since Oregon recently changed their law. Before that happened, if I happened to be driving down the US West coast, I would make sure to time my fuel stops to avoid having to get gas in Oregon. I hate having to wait for somebody to eventually get around to me. I want to drive in, get gas, and get gone :)
@@redzeckxWe should still have drive coachs on our horses.Makes thousand of more jobs...
That nonsense also exists in Brazil. Honestly the hose is big enough, i just park whatever have a spot
i've driven both, and i definitely want it on the drivers for saftey reasons. being able to quickly get in and out of my car, especially when i'm alone at a gas station is really important.
If you are alone at a gas station, why would you need to get in your car quickly? A bear attack?
**this is sarcasm**
I assume what you mean is when you are not with someone you know. And from this statement I assume you are a woman. Concerned about presumably men at the gas station.
Hadn't even thought of that, but now that you've mentioned it, I would definitely be uncomfortable having to walk all the way around my car as opposed to being right by the door. I will have to consider this whenever I buy a car now.
Oh definitely! As a disabled woman, I prefer to go where I can pay directly at the pump with my card or phone app, too so I don't have to walk inside.
Is it? How many times has that come up?
In what dystopian hellhole of a country do you live that this is a concern?
As an avid motorcyclist, fuel cap location is important, as most bikes have a side stand that leans the bike left. My Yamaha bagger puts the cap on the right side, when it's leaned left, the filler neck is on the high side of the tank. This is good. My Harley has the cap in the center of the tank, so when it leans left on the stand, the exhaust sticks out from the right, so you have to reach across the bike while trying not to burn your legs, or spill gas on the exhaust. I've learned to just back in perpendicular to the stall so the left lean is towards the nozzle. I also had a Suzuki Burgman that had a center stand and fuel door was on the floor. That worked well. Anyway, for passenger vehicles, I'm team passenger-side fuel door.
Interesting! I'm coming up on 150k miles of riding and all of my bikes (ok, so that's only 5) have had center fuel caps. Maybe it's a genre difference thing... they've all been sport-touring, except for one dual-sport. All Japanese. Anyway, I tend to pull up with the pump on my left, out of habit from driving cars with gas doors on the driver's side. And I usually fill while sitting on the bike & holding it up. If I fill on the side stand, I'll pick the bike up for the last little bit. It just seems...safer, I guess. Hate those pumps that stop and then spit gas out when you move to replace them.
why the hell would you stand on the right side of the bike when filling up??? plus if you really wanna maximize the fuel, you can sit on the bike after you start fueling and balance is upright.
The side stand was always on the side the fuel tank petcock was on so that when you rest it on the side stand more fuel will slosh over the hump in the bottom of the tank (were the frame is) to the side where it drains (by gravity).
My 2016 Toyota Corolla has the fuel door on the driver's side. I find it much more convenient. I also don't perfectly line the fuel door with the pump. I always pull up a bit further to give myself space to get out of the car. I'm disabled (all four limbs have issues, but the damage to my legs is what's relevant here). That's a long way to walk all the way around to the rear passenger side. With the door on the driver's side, I often don't even need my cane. My leg brace is enough to help me walk in a tight space like that, especially since I can grab the top of the car or lean against it if needed for the few steps I need to take. Even if the door isn't lined up well, the hose is long enough to reach. Also, the ability to finish pumping and immediately get into my car while avoiding any unnecessary time outside around people who might try to *shudders* strike up a friendly and pleasant conversation is beyond valuable to me.
As someone who STILL has her first car, a 1988 Volvo 240, this resonates hard. Love hearing people talk about their owning of a Volvo 240 over the years. Great car.
I learned to drive on a 1976 Volvo 245. Died about 1996 at over 300k miles.
I still own my first car. Not a daily driver, Trabant are not really comfy...
BTW: gas tank is right next to the engine, filler under the hood. 😀
I have a 940turbo does that count
As someone who still has their first car, a 1988 Saab 900, I still appreciate the 80's Volvos and their owners.
Still driving my 2nd car a 1990 240 wagon ✌️
1972 Chev Impala had it at the rear under the license plate. I worked at a gas station (full serve) where a woman came in and couldn't find where to put the gas (her repair shop gave her a 72 impala as a loaner). The guy working with me was completely stumped, and came over feeling embarrassed and asked me if I could find it. My parents had one when we were young so I knew exactly where it was. I said to him, "come here, watch this..." and I pulled the little metal curved thumb pull under the license plate, and I watched the guy's mind blow LOL. 🤣
If you really want to blow someone's mind, find the fuel door on a 55-57 Chevy BelAir.
The tail light on the fin is the door and the whole tail light swungs out.
How cars are adapted for countries that drive on the opposite side of the road is interesting in itself. Some manufacturers make two versions that are basically mirror images of each other, whereas others move the steering wheel assembly across and everything else is still as it was (as much as possible).
Why not make a car that's switchable? The steering wheel doesn't have to be mechanically connected to the wheels. It can just be a funny-shaped joystick controlling the steering system via some wires. That would allow for a design where you can take out and swap the steering wheel and glove box when you reach the border between countries that drive on different sides of the road.
@Roxor128 Are you suggesting a drive by wire system?
I think Tesla is the only manufacturer who's implemented such a system. Biggest downsides would be electronic failure making you unable to steer, and higher cost from a more complex system.
It's totally doable, but the benefits aren't that great that it makes it worth the change.
@@che3se1495 Sure. Everything comes with powered steering these days, and fly-by-wire is good enough for the aerospace industry, and they have much stricter safety standards than the automotive one.
@@che3se1495 I think Lexus had one before Tesla.
@@Roxor128 Yes the aerospace industry has much higher standards, but they're also used to paying extra for parts made to those standards. Would you pay double for a new car with ultra-reliable drive by wire steering?
i am just over 5 minutes in and i am realizing that my opinions on the placement of the fuel door are much more intense than i realized. the two reasons you brought up are exactly my reasons. trying to avoid bumping the pylon is very annoying and some are way too close to the car and make getting out difficult. but more importantly i have run out of fuel on the side of the road, on an off ramp of a busy highway to be specific, and i VERY MUCH wished my fuel door was on the passenger side. that situation was stressful enough without also having to worry about potentially getting hit by a car. getting those 1 or 2 gallon gas cans to work is so much harder when you have to do it from an awkward angle while you stay as close to your car as possible.
I think someone else kind of alluded to this, but there is a safety advantage to the driver's side fuel door. When you pull up to the pump to refuel, you get out on a side of that is protected from other cars pulling into the station. Thus, you are less likely to get hit by a driver whose attention is on lining up their own fuel filler. Roadside emergencies are probably a higher risk situation, but refueling is going to happen much more often, so it all probably balances out.
I dont think it balances out at all considering most people dont run their cars out of gas but everyone that drives an ICE car has to get gas sometimes multiple times a week. I would much rather be protected when filling than have it on the other side where I MIGHT run out of gas.
I like having it on the driver's side because I don't want to open my door into the traffic in the gas station. I feel like a lot of people forget how to drive the second they enter a parking lot/leave a road. I do acknowledge the safety factor of avoiding traffic when filling your car on the side of the road, but that's a lot less common than filling at the station.
I understand in theory why it's better to have them be different, with the example you showed. But in my experience that ends up not being what happens. Instead people pull up from both sides of the gas station, so then you have cars facing each other, and awkward situations where there's nowhere to go depending on which side of the car your fuel door is. (I'm not sure I'm explaining this very well but like. Cars are facing different directions, and there's nowhere to go, and it's all very awkward.) And I think if all cars had fuel doors on the same side, it would eliminate that in the sense that everyone would have one correct side of the pump to go on, so no cars would be on the same side facing different directions.
I go almost exclusively go to places like Sam's Club and Costco, where the lanes are all one-way. What if every gas station adopted this arrangement, where all cars are pointed in the same direction? Traffic flows quite smoothly even when it's super busy at the Sam's gas stations.
@commander.saavik yes that's ideal!! I mostly go to random shells or something and they definitely don't do that and it's annoying
Wait what? You have free for all gas stations in the US? They're all one way in the UK, or at least like 98% of them are! Sounds like a nightmare when things get busy.
@@rainbowevil most of the ones I've gone to across two different states are free for all, yeah! It is a nightmare 😭
@@skylerwitherspoon As someone else in the UK that is crazy to me. Ours are so narrow, not only are they one way, but you can't even overtake someone if they finish first sometimes. I find though, that the hoses are soo long I can just pull
them over my car and fill from both sides.
This video made me want to teach Hank how to make a pivot table.......... The volume of data he had would have made a pivot table super useful
My first car was a 1967 Chrysler. The gas cap was behind the rear license plate. I loved that I could pull up on either side of the pump.
Were there any mumexplosions?
same with some older jeeps
Same with my 1978 Impala. Loved it for the same reason.
my miata is on the driver side, but up on the fender and it’s common for people to fill from either side, because it’s so small
@inalasahl I had a 1995 Caprice and it was behind the license plate. I miss that car.
"Ill be slightly uncomfortable on this hill" has such "i have approximate knowledge of many things" energy
You just need to drive a Miata, Hank! Especially an older one from before 2006. You can pull up to the pump any way you like, and the hose will almost always be able to reach the fuel door! On account of how small the Miata is.
Yep lol I drive a Z3 and it's on the passenger side (which is aesthetically nicer imo) but I could pull up either way.
What's disturbing me is the amount of people driving big cars who are commenting that they don't know the size of their own car or if they're going to hit something. Jesus Christ people learn where your wheels and bumpers are so you don't like hit and kill a cyclist!
My first car was a 1991 Volvo 240! I’m a 2000s baby but I loved that car. I can’t believe I share that in common with you Hank! Fantastic and unique vehicle
Subaru driver here, and honestly I'm surprised _you're_ surprised. Like, aside from all the jokes and memes it's one of the most popular car brands *in the world!* I recommend Subaru to everyone I meet who goes shopping for a car and GUESS WHAT
The fuel door is *on the passenger side!*
Very rarely see Subaru cars in the UK
@@frankhooper7871 Admittedly I might feel some perception bias as I live in one of the biggest Subaru _markets_ in the world but they're still no slouches! And... clearly very popular among Hank Green enjoyers. We have data to support _that_ fact!
This may depend on where it's made (Subaru America or Subaru Japan), for me driving a Subaru Outback in Australia it's on the driver's side, but we're also right hand drive here.
I did a project where I learned about Subaru’s add campaign in the 90s, and I believe that Hank’s audience skews female/queer more than the average population. So of course there are more Subaru owners - they’re in his demographic.
The sales are also heavily driven by quality data such as consumers reports. Which fits this channel.
Opposite opinion. I’ve had both at the same time and having it on the drivers side in the winter is so much better. Quick in and out
That second it takes one to step around the vehicle sure makes a difference 😅
@@alxk3995 You haven’t been out in cold enough then 😅
@@alxk3995It certainly does when you're in freezing windy weather, and your vehicle is your only wind-break. Steals the heat straight out of your soul.
I'm confused how taking 4 or 5 more steps around the car is an issue? Are you getting back in your car because you shouldn't do that for electric charge circumstances.
@@iamjamesmix i'm guessing they are, yeah. A lot of people don't really dress for the weather when they go out in the winter in their cars, which could definitely make standing outside for a minute or two untenable. In my experience, people who live through their cars can often be very intolerant of any discomfort from the weather.
mine is on the passenger side but i really appreciate the little arrow on my fuel gauge that tells me what side it's on literally every time i get gas
(i drive a volkswagen, in north america)
This information completely blew my mind, and I now need to check my fuel gauge to see if it has it. I have to stop and think about it every single time I pull in for gas. Especially now since I've had a car for two years with a driver's side fuel door, after 17 years with a passenger-side one, but even with my old car, even after 17 years, I still had to think about it and visualize my memories of being at fuel pumps every time to get it right!
@ i got my license super late (35) and this, my first car a year ago (at 36!) so i am extra thankful for it because i am also so new to getting gas that my brain is very insistent i don't fuck this up haha
i did have the experience that if i have exactly 1/4 of a tank it hides the arrow just enough that i can't see it, truly a devastating moment of having to get back in my car and turn around at the gas station so now i refill at 1/3rd instead 😅
@@binaryrainbows -- Filling your tank at 1/3 instead of 1/4 can be better for your car, too! When your fuel is quite low, the fuel pump has to work much harder. Stressing the fuel pump that way over and over can wear out the pump faster. (At least that's what my mechanic taught me when my car's pump needed replaced.)
My car has the arrow, but it's next to a 🏠 icon, because I'm expected to mostly charge at home, I guess...
@@minereallyit's not really that the pump has to work harder, but most of them are cooled by the fuel in the tank, so when it gets too low, the pump gets hotter and wears out more quickly :)
My first car, a 1995 Chevy Corsica had a passenger side fuel door. Everything we’ve had since has a driver’s side one. I live in a kinda crappy part of town so there were times I did feel weird having to lock up and walk around the car to fuel up with the Corsica.
You do make a fair point with people more accurately lining things up with the driver’s side fuel door and the dangers of running out of fuel on the road.
This video feels like my ADHD. By which I mean that it's an interesting topic. An odd topic. A topic nobody cares about, and yet, it's interesting. It's worth the time spent on the topic. But also a waste of time. All at once. And that, I feel, is a great deal about what my life is like. And I love it. I'm here for this.
I’m non-ADHD and enjoy interesting and odd topics that nobody else cares about? I don’t think it’s exclusively neurodivergent behaviour!
During this whole video, I kept thinking "Hank sounds like me". (Also ADHD btw)
@@ryanwritingsongsnot an exclusively neurodivergent trait but it is a trait that almost anyone with adhd can easily relate to and see in themselves.
@@ryanwritingsongs It's not exclusively ADHD at all, you are right and correct. But, at the same time, I feel like this video exemplifies much about my life in some strong ways. lol.
I've spent >15 years wasting time on reddit - far far too much time - because there's always something new and different and it feeds my curiosity like nothing else. It is a mildly harmful addiction. I am a sponge for knowledge. Now, I may not retain it, but I learn it. lol.
Still not an ADHD-exclusive by any means. But I think as the other two who replied might help my point - like.... it's something that is very much how a lot of us are, not to say only us.......... hard to articulate it. One of those stupid "IYKYK" things because I'm not explaining it well, sorry.
So not exclusive by any means, but, like, this is how my life works and this video made me feel like home, if that makes sense. lol
@@Isaac.Eiland-Hall I feel seen.
I prefer the fuel door on the driver side. It's easier to see how far you are and when you are pulling out you get a better view of the barriers that are next to the pump.
Nope, it's harder to pull up when its driver side.
@@ds7307 Nope, it’s harder to pull up when its passenger side.
@@ds7307 seems more like a self report
This.
Plus you get 1+ tons of metal between you and moving vehicles at all times as extra insurance against idiots. Metal can be cleaned up and repaired fairly easily, meat not so much.
So you're saying you're a bad driver? You should be able to equally like up your car no matter what side it's on or else you are not a very good driver and pedestrians and other motorists driving on your passenger side should watch out! Because apparently you don't know where the right side of your car is....
13:37 i want to buy the car that has physical buttons instead of a giant touch screen
+
And knobs!!
how could anyone have thought that it's safe to use only a touchscreen in moving traffic - that's what baffles me!
This needs to be law.
I think this is a matter of perspective. Younger generations are going to find a touch screen with every function of the car on it in one place. Easier and simpler to use then buttons spread out all over the dashboard looking down on the dash searching for one button out of dozens. Could arguably be more distracting than looking at the screen directly in line with the windshield
Drove a U-Haul a few weeks ago (Ford) and the fuel door was on the driver's side. VERY helpful for being able to see where I was lined up when stopping at gas stations.
At first I was really concerned that you were talking about in which direction the fuel door opens up. So glad that wasn’t the issue.
Don't get him started. We'll get a 20 minute video on which direction the fuel door opens. And, in addition, is there a cockpit fuel door release switch? Now you've done it.
@ The fuel door must open one way though. The other way would allow wind to catch under the door and potentially cause damage. It’s already bad enough for cars that come with shells over the fuel door (as opposed to one solid piece). Those shells would fly off at car washes all time.
Release latch though? That just depends on how willing people are to steal your fuel. Then the style of latch vs button, mechanical linkage vs electric…
Oh my, what have I done?
Hank I can't stress enough that I deeply care about which side the fuel (filler/gas/gas cap/...) door is on, and also it's critically important to me that it's on the driver's side and not the passenger side.
also, Hank what if I run out of gas while I'm in the left lane of a highway and have to pull onto the median. Am I not then endangered by your passenger side fuel door chicanery? hashtag gotcha etc
I agree, wholeheartedly, with this. I prefer to align my driver's side with the fuel pump - it is easier than passenger's side.
The passenger side is the only acceptable side, because it makes it easier to make my passenger get out and pump gas if it is raining or unpleasant outside. People who want it on the driver's side are obviously under the influence of Satan and someone should notify the Vatican to start a new Inquisition. May god have mercy on your soul.
@@jokerES2This is basically my rationale. It’s so much easier to get the car in the right place when it’s on the side that I can see!
@@amykathleen2do you not have mirrors on cars either? 😳
Now this is the content I subscribed for. Shedding light on questions I've been asking myself for years. Thank you sir. -some driver of a 2003 nissan with the fuel door on the passenger side..
Putting the door on the driver’s side means you can stay closer to the gas pump. As mentioned, this is convenient for not having to walk around.
There are two other advantages though: safety and rain. Some gas stations are designed (or at least used) with three “lanes” between each row of pumps: two lanes for pumping gas and one in the middle for vehicles getting in and out. If you need to put your vehicle’s passenger side next to the pump, that means your squishy human body is exposed to the center lane. Even worse, if someone hits your car’s door (the real door, not the fuel door) as you’re getting out, you might become the meat jam in a metal (or plastic or fiberglass or whatever) sandwich.
On the ends, you have to contend with vehicles circling around or going to the c-store, but you sometimes also have to contend with rain. The pump itself is usually covered these days, so if you’re exiting the vehicle on the pump side, you’re more likely to be under the roof.
I've never seen a gas station where the pumps were covered not by a roof. Ie, the massive roof will cover you no matter which side you get out of.
The most important thing is:
On your fuel gauge icon, there will be a triangle on the left or right of it to indicate which side the gas tank is.
Not always, though!
I came in the comments just to say this. If your car does not have a fuel door side indicator - it isn't only wrong, its also illegal because that indicator is mandatory in EU.
@guss77 do you have a source for this?
@@guss77 I'm living in europe, I have two cars, a french station wagon from 2008 and a german sedan from 2013 neither of those has a triangle on the fuel indicator.
Sometimes the position of the fuel hose on the icon indicates the side, afaik
Team driver's side here. For security reasons, if you pull into a gas station at night, you don't want to have to walk around and stand on the passenger side. Also in the winter, you can get back in your car without losing sight of the nozzle. Hank, if you're always banging your door into the pillar, you're pulling in too close to the pump. It will reach if you park a little farther away.
Your passenger side door doesn't work?
cant if you are driving with someone else already sitting there@@teagancombest6049
The fuel filler is often one one side or the other for technical engineering reasons and is not an arbitrary descision.
For example, the exhaust most commonly exits on the passenger rear corner of the car, because that keeps it the furthest away from the driver. This means that the exhaust pipe usually runs down the passenger side of the car. Often, the gas tank has to be on the opposite side to keep it away from the hot exhaust. Thats why my f150 has the fuel filler(s) on the drivers side.
However, my 1974 Jeep CJ7 has the exhaust running down the drivers side, because the AMC engine used in the Jeep has the exhaust exit on the drivers side of the engine. So the fuel filler is on the passenger side.
I've never owned a car with the exhaust on the passenger side :D
@HulluJanne lots of Chevys and Nissans, huh?
@@jaredlancaster4137 Zero, actually. Old VAGs, one Fiat, Subaru and a Mazda. Though now that I think of it and checked some generic pictures from the web, my parents briefly had a Mitsubishi Lancer from around '86 and a Mazda 626 around '88, which both had the exhaust on the passenger side and the fuel door on the drivers side. I'm not sure about the Honda CR-V they have at the moment.
@@HulluJanne i've had both, and whenever it's a single-side and a side fuel door, the fuel door has always been on the opposite side from the exhaust. obviously with a dual exhaust, it's a moot point, but most of my cars have had single-side exhaust. i think i've seen some that have a single-side-same-side but nowhere near as common as single-side-opposite-side.
for some reason, you restore my hope in humanity a little every time i watch a video of yours
The second argument for having the gas door on the right side of the vehicle is a valid one! I was in a Ford F-250 with a mentor of mine and we were pulling a trailer, but the truck ran out of gas or had some issue with the fuel pump that caused the engine to die while we were pulling out of a lot. Unfortunately with how this road was structured we got stuck on the on-ramp to a decently busy highway, with not a lot of space on the side of the road for a big F-250 to squeeze into, and filling the gas tank that close to the road does pose more than a few safety hazards!
Edit for clarification: It was a one-lane on ramp and we pulled to the right of the road. The gas door was on the left. Hence the potential hazard
I'm guessing you mean passenger side, as we don't all drive on the right
I don't particularly pay attention to the side of the fuel door when purchasing a car, and it just so happens that so far each time I got a new car it switched side.
Having it on the passenger's side is indeed a little more convenient, in that it's easier to stop at the station without any effort on placing the car so that it would be possible to open the driver's door without hitting anything and with enough clearance to get in/out of the car.
But there is a safety benefit to having the door on the driver's side. The lanes on gas stations tend to be relatively tight. If you do everything on the driver's side, you're never in the way of another vehicle. If the fuel door is on the passenger's side, though, it means that you need to open the driver's side, and get out of the vehicle, on what amounts to a very busy, sometimes very very busy, though slow moving, road. Actually, same thing when you also move along the back (or front) of the car, because other cars try to position on pumps right before/after you. So it's more like parking and walking on a very busy road where everyone constantly parks next to you. Is that risk really significant, and do such accidents happen? I don't know. But it certainly takes more attention to timing and movement, and requires more care.
Plus, practically all gas stations have enough roofing to cover the area right next to the pumps from rain. The other side of the car, a lot rarer. So if you need to fuel in the rain, trivial where the fuel door is on the driver's side, not necessarily so when it's on the passenger's side.
Admittedly, these are technically issues with station design, and changing all gas stations to have wider lanes, with more spacing between pumps (so a lot less pumps or the need for a much larger area station for the same amount of pumps/cars), and to have a larger/full roof over everything (more costly, more maintenance and possible drainage issues), would solve these and make passenger's side fuel door a clear winner. But that's not the situation as it is now, nor likely to change in the future, so driver's side fuel door is, at least for me, a slightly better alternative.
Tbh you are right. I used to live in a big city with not a lot of room and very small gas stations and it was like playing Tetris trying to fill my car
The vast majority of fuel stations I have seen here in Europe were fully roofed. The only ones without roofs I can remember were some tiny ones in the middle of nowhere in Iceland, with only 2 pumps, so it's just 1 island and a billboard, not even a building for a cash register, it's self service only.
Most dashboards have an arrow indicator pointing to the side of the fuel door anyway, although most people don’t realize this
Different countries drive on different sides of the road and some manufacturers sell essentially the same car all over the world.
Yeah as someone who drives sitting on the passenger’s side, my first thought was shouldn’t you be asking “right or left” not just “driver’s side or passenger’s”?
@@dyhidrogenmonoxide What does "drives sitting on the passenger's side" even mean? You sit in the passenger seat but lean over to operate the wheel and pedals? If you're driving there (and the instruments are on that side) it's by definition the drivers side.
India and Pakistan drives on the Left so a significant portion of the world's population
Yeah, also platfroms reuse parts so often if one car from a manufacturer makes a major structural choice others will as well.
Also Japan drives on the left, which explains the Japanese manufatcurer bias.
@@TheRealBrit I think it's a misunderstanding. By definition, the steering wheel is always on the driver's side. I think what DHMO means is that he drives sitting on the STARBOARD side of the vehicle, rather than the PORT side like I do in the USA.
Mark Roger is Awesome! We are ordering this for our 12 yo boy for Christmas! I personally love his video on the squirrel obstacle course. Fabulous Gus ❤.
Back in the 80s, they were in the back which was the best. It's actually the law in Germany that the fuel door be on the right side. This is if if you run out of gas on the autobahn, and then have to fuel up with a gas can, you will be opposite from traffic when fuelling.
I have been driving for over 50 years. Let me think hard about how many times I have run out of gas during those 50 years. Zero. That's right, I have never run a vehicle out of gas. Even if the gas gauge were to stop working, I would simply fill up every 100 miles until I had a chance to get the gas gauge fixed.
That's nice michael. That's not everyone's experience. @@michaelshultz9923
@@michaelshultz9923cool?
Try to get gas before you fall below 1/4 of a tank remaining. Most cars these days have the fuel pump inside the tank, and it uses the fuel itself to help cool the pump. If it gets too low, your pump has to run hotter, which also means more likely to fail.
@@michaelshultz9923I've only run out a few times, all for financial reasons.
When I was a kid, there used to be stories of cars being burgled (stolen purses and such) from the driver's door when the driver (more likely a lady when purses were in the story) were on the opposite side of the car pumping gas, typically looking at the fuel pump rather than paying attention to their car (typically SUV types, I'd imagine with darkened windows).
lock your car, kids.
For me, a disabled person, I like that the fuel filler is on the left side of my Ranger. It makes things a lot easier when I don't have someone with me to help.
Also, I have never in my 30-someodd years of driving run out of gas. I consider 1/4 tank to be "empty" and I fill up near there all the time.
That's fair, assuming your car's in a place where "left side" means driver's side, I know I have friends IRL who'd have similar opinions if they drove
(one fun thing Hank didn't cover in the video is that cars can be left-hand-drive or right-hand-drive and maufacturers don't move the filler cap location to move between markets, so "left side" doesn't actually unambiguously map onto either "drivers side" or "passenger side")
@@Hannah_Em My US centrist bias showed through in my comment. I did, indeed, mean driver's side when I said "left"
And in general you are correct - vehicle manufacturers try to change as little as possible between LHD and RHD variants of their cars... and now I want to get my hands on the service manual for a RHD Ford Ranger, just to see what's different. (And fun fact, the 5th generation of Rangers, from 2011 to present, were developed and designed in Australia FOR the Australian market, so it was originally designed to be RHD, and then converted for LHD for the Americas and other markets!)
@@DobieTanpaw yeah, most RHD delivered cars here in Australia have the fuel filler on the left hand or "Passenger" side. Domestic production usually had it on the Driver's or "Right hand side"... but sometimes there's a mix. Then you get into the weeds of the fuel filler icon telling you which side the filler is on, so you rock up to the correct bowser :D
I drive a 5th Gen Camaro SS, the fuel door is on the passenger side. It works well for 2 door cars since they have longer doors and, like Hank said, it’s easier to get in and out at the pump.
Another thing that may be of interest is the Jaguar XJ6 in the 1970s; the car had a fuel cap on both sides of the car because it had two separate fuel tanks. There was a switch on the dash that the driver could flip that switched which fuel tank the engine would use.
4:38 you got a lotta lesbians hank
I was thinking the same lol
Thank goodness for that little arrow indicator on the fuel gauge: as I don't own a car, every time I drive, it's an unfamiliar car (a friend's or a rental). If not for that arrow, I'd have to check every single time. (I _do_ have to find the fuel door release lever every time, but those are usually easy to spot.)
*Team driver's side,* here, so I can sit in the car if there's rain or snow or cold wind, whilst keeping an eye on the pump. As many others have pointed out, adding a liter or two from a jerry can by the side of a highway is a vanishingly rare case, only takes like 15 seconds, and shouldn't be optimized for.
But I do understand not wanting to ding the driver's door on the concrete bollards. It's a stronger argument than I was expecting.
Weird thing on my Hyundai Kona: the fuel door is on the driver’s side (left), but the arrow points to the right!
@KristenK78 What the hell? Is nothing sacred? Did they, like... just borrow the dashboard lights arrangement from another vehicle and somehow _not know_ what the arrow means?
Genuine question: How do you fill up your car if you're sitting inside it? Do the gas pumps where you live not require you to squeeze the nozzle to dispense? I am actually so curious about this haha
@lilypetal You have to squeeze the lever, but there's a spring-loaded metal piece you move into place with your finger that holds the lever open in any of 3 levels (flow speeds).
When the tank is full, the pump nozzle detects this and the pump stops abruptly enough to shake loose the metal tab, retracting the lever automatically.
You do have to stay near the pump and keep an eye on it, in case this mechanism fails to stop the flow, but this almost never happens.
@@ps.2My mind is officially blown!! I will need to check the pumps here for that lol. I struggle with muscle weakness so this could save me some pain! Thank you for answering.
As someone who used to supervise a gas station, from what I’ve seen there are many more fuel doors on the right on imported vehicles. Especially higher end vehicles. Fords, Chevrolets, Dodges, and other US/Canada made cars are usually driver’s side. Costco is also one of the few stations that have extendable hoses, that can reach either side of almost every vehicle.
Edited bc I realized I had it backwards, and was thinking which side of the pump they park on, not which side of the car it’s on.🤦♂️
my ford was on the right side.. my toyota was on the left. i bought my toyota specifically because it was on the driver's side - and it had heated seat, a sunroof and a back up cam, but also because the gas was on the left!
my Chevy Cruze has on the right-- I've had mostly foreign cars before and they were all on the left till this one
Yeah, there are definitely exceptions, but the vast majority of US brands have theirs on the left side. Again, I think the biggest factor for a lot of them was whether or not they were luxury or at least higher end vehicles.
Every Chevy my parents have owned (6) had the fuel cap on the passenger side with the exception of the Caprice which was behind the license plate
I only had 2 cars in the US, a Pontiac G6 (passenger side) and a ford Mustang (drivers side). I had assumed that it was somewhat consistent between Ford and GM (and that they were opposite each other) until I learnt that the engineer who invented the little arrow next to the pump symbol worked for Ford and was annoyed because he was driving random pool cars and wouldn’t know which side to pull up to.
I would have to say that having the filler door on the opposite side of the driver does cause more drive offs with the pump still attached to the car. Having the gas door on the same side that you get in and out is more likely for you to realize that you are still plugged in before you drive off.
9:15 Hank do a pivot table! stop hurting me xD
Me shouting that exact thing at my phone and then your time stamped comment popped up 😂😂😂😢
@@sakuraubrey Same!
I'm in Jersey and mine is on the driver side. I like it this way since we don't pump the gas, it allows the attendant to come to my driver window rather than me having to talk through the passenger window.
same! so annoying when i take one of my cars that it's on the passenger side and i have manual windows too. they never come to the driver side.
as owners of two subarus, my wife and i both have fuel doors on the passenger side and my wife loves it! she always mentions being able to slip through costco gas faster because we have the ideal fuel door location. my wife is right there with you on thinking about fuel doors more than average folk haha
My household is also a 2 subaru family and we also prefer the passenger-side fuel door
But Costco hoses are long enough you can go in any line no matter what
I just pull the fuel hose over the trunk and fill it if there’s an open spot for the opposite side
@@catscratchfever1473and yet it's just annoying enough that most people avoid it
My first car had it on the driver's side while my last two had it on the passenger side. It's not a dealbreaker but it definitely screws with my mind having to drive on the left side of the pump.
Not sure if Nissan put a lot of thought into that decision, they decided to put the voice command button right next to the cruise control button on the steering wheel after all.
Hey Hank. Jaguar XJ6 models from the 80s at least, have saddle tanks with a small tank on both the passenger and driver sides with fuel doors on both sides!
It also used to be common for pickup trucks to have an optional second fuel tank, so you'd have a fuel door on one side of the bed, and a filler neck just sticking out of the fender on the other side.
@@mpf1947 that depends on the year and brand. I daily drive an '85 Chevy so there are fuel doors on both sides. Late 70's early 80's was a transitional period for GM where some had just the filler neck and later started getting doors, even seen a few like you described with one of each (perhaps a dealer add on?). 80's/90's Ford pickups also tended to have both fuel doors on one side.
This is true of all large Jaguar sedans (i.e. excluding the Mk II and its descendants) until 1987. I presume this was originally done for convenience (i.e. an acknowledgment that their biggest markets, USA and UK, drive on opposite sides of the road), and later essentially a matter of tradition. In my experience (my parents had '59 Mk IX and then an '87 XJ6) it wasn't actually all that convenient, because there wasn't a crossfeed function or a 'both' setting like in an airplane, so you had to pull in on the correct side of the pump for whichever tank was empty (and be prepared to pass the hose over to the other side of the car if you were fueling up for a road trip).
My '71 Mercedes Benz L508D truck also has two tanks and two filler necks, but because the second tank was an option, there is no selector valve at all; it just draws fuel from the passenger side tank and the bottom of the optional driver side tank is permanently plumbed into the bottom of the passenger side tank in what I'd call a 'gravity crossfeed' arrangement if it was an airplane. (If they were plumbed and selectable separately like a Jaguar sedan, I'd have converted the second tank to waste cooking oil years ago!)
My 1971 British car (Triumph Spitfire) has the fuel door on top of the rear panel. Making it that way allowed them to use same base as a RHDrive (UK) or a LHDrive (US)
Sounds like a great way to eat the paint off your car
Hank, my friend, gas station forecourts are designed so you can approach the pump from either side. Most even have multiple entrances. If your gas flap is on the opposite side to the pump, you just drive to the other end of the court, and then approach a pump from that side.....
I don't know about the US, but gas station pumps in germany have fuel hoses long enough to reach around if your gas flap is on the opposite side of the pump. Having driven a mix of mostly japanese and french cars since the 90s, where the french where passenger sided and the japanese driver sided, my main concern while approaching a gas station always was and still is: When there is a free pump, I'll take it, no matter the side. 😅
@@unvillage It's the same in Aotearoa, where I'm from, but a lot of people are uncomfortable parking very close to the pumps, so I often see people with larger vehicles park too far for the hose to reach the other side of the vehicle.
It's me, I'm the 'a lot of people' 🥲
What I am learning from this comments section is that most people are terrible drivers who are afraid and anxious at all times in normal traffic situations lol.
I love how much you harp on about the parking at the gas station like you can't just come in from the other side 😭
Great video Hank!
we can say with a fair amount of accuracy, that a large amount of lesbians watch hank green because who else drives a subaru
I was thinking this too haha 🤣
so true, i say this as a green fan who is queer and drives a subaru
Tbh I want a Subaru sedan one day
Car enthusiasts like to mod and drive Subarus. I think the WRX is most popular in the ricer community when it comes to modded Subarus. However, the Subaru BRZ with the boxer engine is a pretty sweet looking car. It's also the Toyota 86 and there's a Scion version, too. They're all basically the same car.
Catching strays
I like that Hank is making car videos because I know NOTHING about cars but I know that I need to know more about cars. this can be my entry point.
Watch Top Gear. It's the show that both car and non-car people loved
We signed up for Crunch Labs in 2022 as a Christmas gift for my kids, and we LOVE it! I highly recommend it.
I generally pull past the cement barriers in order line the filler door up with the pump more directly, so I can't say I've really had an issue with my driver's side door hitting them.
I've owned cars that do both and I definitely prefer driver's side.
I think it's a self-report by Hank - I don't think I've ever even had to think about that problem.
Pivot Tables would change buddy’s life
Huh?
@@koalactrl Allows you to slice and dice sums and counts by the values in other columns. You could count answers for each side for each manufacturer, for example.
That or follow an SQL guide! There's so much categorical data to parse and ask whatever questions Hank may have
Pivot tables rule!! Why write SQL when pivot tables will do all the work for you?
I prefer passenger side, because it's what all subarus come with and I love my subie.
Saaaaaame
I live in Europe. In my whole adult life I had driven a few cars and had to fill up most of them and only once did I have to do this on the driver side - it was a rental Ford Transit. The issue you mentioned about having space to open the driver's door while at the same time lining up the filler door close to the pump was mure of a headache than I would have thought. I think that the safest and more convenient option is fuel door on the passenger's side - no door-bashing the pump, safer for roadside refills, and exhaust on driver's side - farther from sidewalk and opposite from fuel-adjacent devices.
I also passionately hate cars with exhaust on the passenger side or both, because that's where you tend to stand if on a bicycle if in traffic, if you can't pass the car in front of you.
It’s good that the gas hoses can stretch across your car if need be. Also, most gas stations around here have multiple entrances, so you may not pull up in the same direction as others. This would help combat the all-one-sided fuel doors conundrum you brought up.
And regardless of how many entrancea they have, many still have enough space outside the pump aisles to go around the outside, if you need to come into a pump from the other way.
I think the argument for slamming your door is actually stronger for putting it on the driver side.
if it's on the passenger side then your door faces other cars, meaning if you slam it into something, it's gonna be another person's car. also there's a higher chance of you keeping your door open and someone driving too fast and braking it off.
Why would you ever leave your car door open while filling up at a gas station?
@@somitomi Why would he not mention gas station traffic? If the extremely rare case of someone being hit while filling with a gas can on the side of a highway is a reason for the passenger side being superior...
Then the driver side is even better because you would ALWAYS be walking out into gas station traffic EVERY TIME. No way in hell you aren't at higher risk getting hit at the gas station where you are objectively on foot far more often
Yo Hank! Love hearing about your random ramblings - you also always answer a lot of questions that I didn't realize I had!
Me too, it brings me happiness and it’s generally something I’ll continue to think about for a few days afterwards too
Australian driver here. I’ve had three cars, (70’s Chrysler, 80’s Mitsubishi, 90’s Toyota.) driven four makes of work van, (90’s Toyota, 2000’s Fiat, 90’s and 2010’s Fords.) and makes of work truck. (Ford Toyota, Isuzu, Mack, Daf from 80’s to 2010’s.) All cars and vans, and all single tank trucks had the filler/tank on the passenger (Left) hand side. These vehicles were made in Australia, South Africa, Japan, and Europe countries, so it’s not just an Australian thing.
7:42 Maybe you get to this by the end of the video, but I think on your poll you should have asked for left or right-hand side to account for people from other countries, as I'm sure they don't change where the fuel door is for their overseas models
As someone who immigrated to America, I have much stronger feelings about brake lights being used as indicators. I absolutely would not buy a car if it didn't have amber indicators.
You found my hill that I will get uncomfortable on! I prefer amber turn signals... but there is no effective difference to just using the red lights. The absolute worst case scenario caused by having red turn signals is that a driver behind slows down when they didn't actually need to. And assuming you are driving a safe distance behind the car, you don't even do that.
I will, however, die on the hill that Kia, Hyundai, and several other manufactures are making unsafe cars with the turn signals mounted way down at the bottom of the bumper instead of at height with the headlights and brake lights. Mounting them that low makes them impossible to see for other drivers when changing lanes, and when stopped at lights.
@johngaltline9933
I mean the worst case scenario is someone interpreting you indicating, but you're actually putting on the brakes and causing an accident?
There is an effective difference.
I grabbed this source www.nhtsa.gov/... from a technology connections video from a couple years back. While I don't think the effect is overwhelming, they did conclude that a dedicated amber turn signal is safer.
I am all for making it easier to communicate with other drivers, cyclists and pedestrians. I'll have to look at a picture of the Kia, but that sounds awful.
You know, even if two cars have their fuel doors on the same side, they can still park next to each other at the gas station. They just need to be facing different directions.
yeah, I'm not getting that point either. you just circle around... which we already do now.
It's weird how people are acting like you cant face opposite directions. Unless you're at Costco that's how it works.
@@ds7307 That's why Costco has extra length. They know folks might their door on the other side.
@@stumpingrimy1686 and we all kinda hate the gas station parking lot for feeling like the wild west.... right?
the literal only reason i got comfortable in the lot was working there.
A lot of the petrol stations in the UK are one way. It would be really hard to find somewhere large enough to turn, then face on coming traffic. If there were a cue to get into the pump, you would get stuck facing the wrong way, not able to leave. You would have to block up two sets of pumps to turn round again. Sometimes it is so narrow that if you have a car in front of you, you can't leave till they do. I really hate getting stuck behind someone who, fills up, then goes into the shop to get a mico burger and coffee. I just have to sit there and wait for them to move their car.
I am firmly in the passenger side camp. Roadside safety of course. But also filling station safety. Less likely to risk static discharge igniting fumes if you have to walk around the car before you get close to the pump, and you are less likely to get back into the car if you have to walk all the way around (I know it sounds crazy to say that, but a main reason to be pro driver side is to avoid that very walk). The door ding argument is also valid, especially if you drive a car with long doors.
But I do see the validity of the safety/escapability of pumping on the driver side, particularly for those that might be more vulnerable, or have to refuel in less savory locales.
Hank, thank you for this. I am binging Green brothers material for calm today.💙
Also, no joke, my son and I were building the chain reaction catapults from the crunchlabs box and watching Mark Rober videos. We googled to see if y'all had a collab going and didn't see anything. I was excited to see who sponsored today's content!
hope your day is relaxing, friend!
Hank, come to Colorado and that Subaru portion will make much more sense
I was going to say that Subaru is fairly popular in Colorado 😂
I was going to say they historically recognized queer folks in a time other companies didn't, and developed brand loyalty because of that. That effect may still persist, but its a bit old fashioned, i think.
@@marsZpantsI mean the other stereotype of Subaru drivers is they are popular amongst lesbians, so that tracks
Here in the UK our cars are small enough you can reach with the ‘gas’ hose from either side of the car making the whole argument redundant ;)
I was thinking the same! My car isn't wide enough to have to worry about this.
VW Polo, fuel door is on the passenger side (right side for me). I couldn’t care less on which side the gass hose is, always works for me. The hoses are long enough and a Polo isn’t big either 😂
@@wimpie031I think all VW’s are on the right side. In the US, that’s nice and follows what Hank is saying.
@@HotTakeAndy Ah, could be. Never drove one in the left oriented countries when I visited.
I don't even think the hoses on most of the pumps in the US are long enough to fill ANY car from the opposite side.
You’re so right on this! I’ll be slightly uncomfortable on that hill with you! 😂
I was so excited for the results of the survey! I'm glad I got to be a data point! 🚗 ⛽ 🚪
Gas pump hoses have breakaways in case people forget to hang up the nozzle before driving away. Maintenance has to be called and so there's a cost to fix it. After checking the camera footage for a licence plate, this cost goes to the customer's insurance. Anyway. Breakaways happen more often when the fuel door is on the passenger side because the driver, after popping in the store for a pepsi and a piss, comes back to their car and hops in with the hose out of sight and out of mind on the other side of their car.
Yes, I manage a gas station and see this happen too often.
Yah, that and the small risk of a spill while filling is why I never leave the pump unattended. I'll wash my windows/mirrors/headlights while it's filling. Then I'll finish and hang it up _before_ I go in.
Or if I have to pee, I'll go in first and _then_ fuel up.
I think the real issue here is letting the pump keep pumping while unattended.
No, we halt the pump once they're away from it. They don't notice they only pumped $12 anymore than they notice the nozzle in their tank.
My one drive off, I was road tripping through South Dakota, and that flicking spring prarie wind... blew doors open, knocked coffee mug off the roof (left a permanent dent to remember this drama by) and is my permanent distracting dementor. I thought I'd collected myself and my thoughts before driving off. But, no.😢
I owe you, Gus's Gas, Winner, SD. I'm still so sorry I broke away the breakaway gas filler hose.
I have seen this happen in real life. Very handy.
10:16 Mini is owned by BMW, but it still makes an effort to maintain its British identity AFAIK. Jaguar and Land Rover are owned together by Tata, an Indian company, but they're still very British. I believe Aston Martin and McLaren are the only major British car makes that are still British-owned.
High end sports cars are the main thing for British companies. Lotus, McLaren, the Sports brands you mentioned, and then Bentley as well.
which makes sense, small island, less need to drive in terms of geography, makes cars more of a luxury good, so the local manufacturers look to fill taht blue sky niche market for either Sports, high end luxury etc, rather than a everyday "around town" type of car.
@@RootBeerofDoomdon’t forget about Rolls Royce, the most pompous of all cars.
@@hypotheticlz Rolls-Royce cars are owned by BMW, like Mini.
@@RootBeerofDoom I mean, Lotus is owned by Geely (Chinese) and a Malaysian holding company while Aston Martin is still partially Mercedes owned (20%).
Personally, I think it's less of an island culture aspect and more just small volume, performance or luxury cars are the only market where small brands can really exist. The UK used to put out plenty of econoboxes but there's very little prestige in making an economy car. Someone buying an Austin Metro for the part wouldn't care if it had been a Fiat Panda or a Ford Fiesta. Eventually the scale of international brands, plus a decade or so of mismanagement and legacy of poor reliability, and there was no point in trying in that market anymore. Without the backing of a global conglomerate, a small make can't compete with the likes of Ford, Stellantis, Honda, RNM, Hyundai, or Kia on price or scale. Prestige only matters for luxury and sport which just so happen also be a low volume market where British makes can actually compete in.
Some muscle cars still have the access port at the rear, just not behind the plate.
4:28 the lesbians in the audience 🤠
WIN FOR PASSENGER FUEL DOORS! Btw, LTP from my wonderful mom (applicable at least here in the EU): on your driver's dashboard, the side that displays your gas meter is the side that your fuel door is in (especially useful for people that rent or switch cars frequently) - no arrows necessary!
not in the eu but mine is in the middle lol.
Not always true
Best part of this video? The aggressive “fight about it in the comment!” Love these deep dives into seemingly meaningless things that end up not!
I have a few cars and they're a solid mix.
1975 Pontiac Ventura - under license plate
1987 Dodge W100 - Driver
1993 Suzuki Sidekick - Passenger
1995 GMC Vandura - Passenger.
I prefer it on the passenger side for all the reasons you said.
My car, a BMW, has it on the passenger's side. I have often thought how nice it would be if the fuel door was on the driver's side, because then it would be easier to line up at the tanks (as mentioned) and always just be much more comfortable waiting for the fuel to fill up, even though I know we're SUPPOSED to stand by monitoring it. It also would make it easier to notice if I forgot to close the fuel door, not that I am someone that has done that (side-eye). However this video has made me appreciate having it on the passenger's side more.
The sitting in your car is unironically why it SHOULD NEVER be on the driver side. It's a major danger for all people there
@@Aryasvitkona In Ontario (Canada) those things that switch the pump on so you don't have to hold it are illegal, so you have to have your hand on the pump at all times. This confused my friend from Alberta when I gave him a ride and he offered to fill up.
As Aryasvitkona points out, it can be dangerous to get back in the car then get out and touch the pump, unless you give the static electricity that can build up getting in and out of the car by touching the metal of the car or something else that will take the charge. If you don't and fumes are present, they can explode, leading to a larger explosion or causing a fire.
Why are so many people readily admitting that they don't know how to drive their own cars?
You can't "line up" the side of your car with a pump going 2mph? You could be multipl feet away from the pump and still be "lined up" If you genuinely cannot do that, how do you deal with sharing the road with bicycles or motorcycles? Do you just plow into every curb when you turn right?