I didn't know cars had drag chutes

Tags:

DRIVER'S SIDE DIATRIBE
By Al Vinikour   

Some people study human nature while others study bugs and plant life. Me? I never studied, which is probably why I wound up in journalism. However, as part of my weekly chore of coming up with a topic for a column I notice everything about me that’s auto-related. This week’s piece involves something that I’ve probably been looking at for years and it never registered until a few minutes ago when I sat down to figure out something to write about (which is why I was never hired by the British to warn them of Luftwaffe aircraft coming across the channel) — Open gas caps.


Years ago there never was such a thing as a gas cap door. You either had a gas cap that was part of the sheet metal or you had a locking gas cap that was part of the sheet metal, depending on where you lived.

Coming from Indiana we never worried much about people siphoning gas from our cars because quite honestly, most of us Hoosiers are not smart enough to move the hose out of our mouths before the gasoline starts gushing out the wrong end. Furthermore, it was easy to tell who had just failed in their attempt at fuel-transference by the green look on their faces and the lack of a perpetual cigarette dangling from their lips.

Even those of us from our beloved home state actually had the intelligence to avoid close contact to a lit cigarette while sporting a belly full of flammable liquid.

As years went by some of the manufacturers got cute and started “hiding” the gas cap in places they couldn’t be seen, like under the taillight or behind the license plate bracket. I used to think the reason there were so many cars abandoned on Campbell Street was because they were mechanically inept and not because they had run out of gas and people weren’t smart enough to know where to put a gasoline hose when the gas gauge starting its run to empty.


The unusual gas cap door in a 1956 Chevrolet

Then, styling reared its ugly head and almost all the manufacturers had their filler necks protected not only by the gasoline cap itself but also behind a door that was part of the fender. Some of them — particularly upscale vehicles — sported locking gas cap doors that could only be opened by depressing or pulling a button inside the vehicle. Others were manual and either had a pull-indent or required a person to push the door in and it would snap out.

I know what you’re thinking: “Al, what does the previous 440 words have to do with anything?” I’ll tell you, Walt. The previous 458 words have been what we call in the news business a flesh-out (at least I do, probably nobody else does). The use of gasoline doors has caused a spate of new displays of ignorance: leaving the gas cap door open while driving. “In the day” people would sometimes leave the filler cap atop the gas pump. Stations and parts stores did a brisk business in gas cap replacements.

Gas tank filler hidden in the fender of a 1948 Tucker

Let’s think this thing through; there’s a 50/50 chance the gas door is on the driver’s side (which is another way of saying there’s a 50/50 chance the gas door is located on the PASSENGER’S side). I like to think that at some point the driver will look at both outside rearview mirrors to keep abreast of oncoming traffic.

Except for some understandable misses by drivers like Stevie Wonder, Jose Feliciano and, for you senior citizens, George Shearing, wouldn’t you think that at some point an open gas cap door would be seen? If so, and the driver doesn’t pull over to close it, then he deserves to become the victim of a Korean War veteran having an acid flashback of holding back the Communist charge on Pork Chop Hill who is lobbing surplus grenades out his car window while driving down I-94.

If the gas cap door were closed then the grenade would probably harmlessly bounce off the car’s fender and blow a hole in the pavement (or underneath the car that’s trailing) instead of wiping out the vehicle with the open door.

I generally try to somehow alert people that their bright lights or turn signals are still on but I’ve given up trying to point to the sides of peoples’ vehicles in th
e hopes they understand what I’m getting at. If they’re so unobservant and absent-minded that they didn’t close their gas cap door when filling up at the station then they deserve to become a target for Sgt. Rock or whatever the nut job’s name and rank is.

Chances are there won’t be any fuel leakage, but not only does a car flying down the highway with an open fuel door look ridiculous but it’s also distracting. While looking at someone else’s vehicle in this condition a generally careful driver could lose concentration of the road ahead and run over the only unicorn ever seen in public who was making a dash for it to get on the side of the freeway where the IHOP is located in the hopes of finding some scraps of food for nourishment.

The moral of this story is to just pay attention to all aspects of the driving process. It’s the office-work equivalent of dotting your i’s and crossing your t’s.

Just think of it as a check list, similar to those used by commercial airline pilots as they begin a trip: Fuel tank? Full; Tires? Full; Bladder? Empty: Coffee? In the cup holder; Gas cap door? Closed and locked. This is such a simple suggestion that a citizen of Ohio could follow it.

And finally, in this age of trying to squeeze out every last mile from a gallon of gas, think of this: the aerodynamic drag on an open gas cap door can cause wind resistance that will cut down on fuel economy. On B-52s we had drag chutes and speed brakes on the wings to slow the aircraft down.

Even those prima donnas who fly supersonic fighters have speed brakes to cause a drop in aerodynamics. And what are these speed brakes made from? The same metals that are used in making fuel doors. I rest my case.