Why do cars with automatic shifts always have the gears in the exact same order?
Park
Reverse
Neutral
Drive
Low Gears
Was there ever a time when this was not the case? Why not put them in order of most to least used - Park, Drive, Reverse, Neutral?
I can’t answer about history, but Neutral is between Drive and Reverse so you can’t go directly from one to the other. If you did, your transmission would be in several tiny pieces all over the road…
…and so would you.
The order is specified by US government regulation.
In the past, there were different orders, but many weren’t such a good idea (hence the regulation).
There are some restrictions that are a good idea. For one, putting neutral directly next to drive. Should something go wrong, you want to minimize the effort in putting the car in neutral. So, you need D-N or N-D at least.
You definitely don’t want Drive and Reverse next to each other, so it makes sense to put Neutral in between. Park needs to be at one end, so there’s very small chance of a mistake when you put it in Park. That leaves you with switching Reverse and Drive, but then you get PDLNR, since you want the low gear next to Drive, if you have multiple low gears it’s now PD21NR.
Since R is always just one gear, having PRNDL means the first 4 gears are completely standardized across makes and models.
Not arguing, but do you have a cite handy for that?
What regulation? The order is the same on vehicles built for other markets, and there is always variation in the low ratio options anyway.
I had a PNDLR - '63 Lark. Everybody switched to PNRDL because it made it less likely to accidentally go from N to R instead of L, or to go from R to D whilst the car was still going the opposite direction.
http://www.nhtsa.gov/cars/rules/import/FMVSS/#SN102
Although the Big Three at least had all gone to the standard PRNDL layout on their own before that rule went into effect in 1968.
Specifically, you’re looking at S3.1.1 and S31.1.1
Thanks.
If anybody is interested, here’s the full text of the standard.
The US was and remains the largest consumer base for automobile purchases. Whatever goes in the US was always going to have a major impact on other markets. It’s less of a problem in Europe, where the majority of cars are manual. In Asia, the big ramp up in auto sales took place in the last few decades, well after the US set the standard, and there’s little reason not to go with a sensible standard.
For low gear, options, the standard only specifies that you have to have a neutral between reverse and forward gears. Also, that if you have a P setting, it has to be next to R. So you can set the gears P-R-N-L-D if you want, but that doesn’t seem sensible, either.
Is there a law for the H pattern on a manual, too?
Seems to me this is a silly thing to put into law. The PRNDL pattern just makes too much sense, as mentioned above, to need to be regulated.
Considering there are at least the following configurations, for just a 5-speed manual transmission (not counting 2, 3, 4, 6, or 7-speed manuals), I would assume not.
1 3 5 R 1 3 5 R 2 4
|-|-| |-|-|-| |-|-|
2 4 R 2 4 1 3 5
A huge amount of trouble comes from not codifying such things, however trivial or obvious they might seem. Read through the national electrical code sometime.
All it would take is for some manufacturer to get cute and [have their marketing department] decide on a different pattern, in a car powerful enough to get in trouble with and aimed at a younger market, to result in needless deaths and accidents. It’s important enough to standardize unless there is very good reason [not marketing brilliance] to do it otherwise.
As it happens, if you read that relevant regulation above, there’s a brief mention of it:
[QUOTE=Relevant Reg]
Manual transmissions. Identification of the shift lever pattern of manual transmissions, except three forward speed manual transmissions having the standard “H” pattern, shall be displayed in view of the driver at all times when a driver is present in the driver’s seating position.
[/quote]
Basically, you have to display the shift pattern where the driver can see it. That is, unless you have a three speed transmission, but those are pretty rare these days.
Apparently it got to be an issue way back with a pattern of L-R at the end. You’d have drivers accidentally selecting the wrong gear and sometimes when the transmission got worn, you’d see the transmission jump from low to reverse leading to accidents.
As noted, the Big Three already moved away from this before the regulation came into play, but I guess an extra layer of safety wasn’t a bad idea, especially for any newcomers to the market.
The law says that the shift pattern has to be displayed somewhere unless it’s the old standard 3-speed H pattern.
My Dad had a 60’s Buick Electra 225 (AKA Deuce and a Quarter) with a PNDR shifter sequence. Big mistake to slam it down into what usually was 1st gear and floor it!
Then there’s push button automatics such as on old Ramblers.
[Crazy Vaclav]“Put it in H!”[/Crazy Vaclav]
60’s Chrysler products had the push button selector as well. Not to mention the Edsel!
I don’t recall the situation, but I do remember driving a pushbutton shift once. Odd as heck, even odder than 3-on-a-tree (which is pretty damned odd). At least it was automatic so I didn’t have to push buttons while driving!