To my colonial-Brit mind, up is the logical position for off, but it's
probably just what we're used to.
Aside from Rootes building aircraft during the war, works rally driver Peter
Harper was an ex-fighter pilot so he could have had some input into
dashboard design.
Russ Maddock
Brisbane, Australia
-----Original Message-----
From: Christie, Scott E. (CAP, GEFA) <Scott.Christie(at)gecapital.com>
To: 'Alpine Subscribers' <alpines(at)autox.team.net>
Date: Friday, 12 February 1999 12:13
Subject: FW: Lucas 3 position switches
>Listers - Jerome poses an interesting theory that makes sense - anybody
know
>the real story?
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: jerome(at)supernet.ab.ca [mailto:jerome(at)supernet.ab.ca]
>Sent: Thursday, February 11, 1999 2:11 AM
>To: Scott.Christie(at)gecapital.com
>Subject: Re: Lucas 3 position switches
>
>
>"Christie, Scott E. (CAP, GEFA)" <Scott.Christie(at)gecapital.com> wrote:
>> Nope, it's a British thing - mine do the same. Logic would lead you to
>> believe that anything in the up position means it's on, but I guess
that's
>> why they also drive on the opposite side of the road!
>
>I was pondering on it further, and wondered whether there was anything
>inherited from the WWII days and military research into the best way to
>lay out cockpits and switches and gauges and such (they did a lot). Then
>I thought about my own experience altering the power switches on PC
>cases for full-time machines, so that anything that fell and hit the
>switch (most likely from above) would turn the machine on (which it
>usually was) rather than off (which it rarely was). Maybe the thinking
>was that these switches were more likely to be accidentally struck
>upward (off) than downward (on), or easier to strike downward (on) from
>the steering wheel. Notice that the two most important switches
>safety-wise are on the immediate left and right, so they were thinking a
>little.
>
>Toss this back to the List if you want - I'd like to know if it's a
>Home/Export thing, or maybe even someone knows there's a actually a good
>reason.
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