My argument if all vehicles have their gas caps on the same side of the vehicle, gas stations can increase the rate at which customers are served at the pumps. Additionally, stations can impose forward only driving i.e. no reverse gear to see massive improvements in some cases. Anybody who as ever had to get gas at a busy station knows what a pain it is to deal with all the drivers that are trying to get into a spot where the fuel hoses can reach their gas caps. Cars will queue up on either end of the isle of pumps and so drivers will have to deal with other cars pointed in the opposite direction as them. Exits become clogged as drivers enter the station in opposing directions. Consider a gas station with two places to enter the station lot, and a single line of pumps that can serve vehicles on either shoulder of the line. Under the proposed solution, there will only be two lanes of vehicles for either side of the line of pumps instead what currently has the potential to be 4 two directions for either side of the line of pumps . Drivers can enter through either entrance, and will wait in line until the closest pump in front of them becomes available. Obviously this still isn't very efficient because drivers waiting in line would have to wait for the car at the closest pump to clear out of the way before any of the pumps that follow become available. Allowing vehicles to reverse into the spots from the other end of the line of pumps traps all other cars that were already fueling, and so I argue that the stations would have the effective option of requiring drivers to not reverse into spots. Some gas stations are wide enough to allow drivers to parallel park into each spot at the pump. However this extra space could be used to add additional lanes of pumps in the future. Obviously each station's lot will be unique and so disallowing drivers to reverse into lanes might not make sense, but I argue that having the drivers be able anticipate exactly how other drivers will have to maneuver into each spot will at least to some extent, in comparison to the current situation still be an improvement. Note that I make no argument for exactly how this new trend should be done, whether it be by convention, law, or other regulation. The side of the car that the cap is on would vary from country to country since which side of the vehicle is the driver side is not a global constant. If cars can be made with the steering wheel on opposite sides of the vehicle, I have no doubt that it is possible to switch the side of the car that the gas cap is on.
Countries should require all new cars and other land vehicles to have their gas tanks filled from the driver side of the vehicle