Re:Why Do Cars Have Fuel Doors on Different Sides?
by jballanc on Friday September 04, 2009 @12:32PM
(#805119)
You're making a big assumption that "putting them all on the same side" has ever been seriously considered or that, were it considered, the result of jamming up gas stations was considered. Without empirical evidence to support these assumptions, Occam's Razor would have me believe that it's as simple as: nobody's really thought about it (other than, as pointed out above, to balance the suspension in high-performance vehicles).
However, merely realizing that such counterplanning would be possible, should a bias to one side emerge, does provide pressure in a game-theoretic sense. It makes any attempt to synchronize a car fleet on one-side self-defeating, even in the thought-experiment stage. So it works at the level of conscious strategy, for any design team that even begins to consider a placement strategy other than 'whatever fits our other choices'.