hmmmm, it may be true.... but it is against warning conventions: a moving car is potentially dangerous, therefore these gears should be indicated in red! Is there a norm for this?

Can't argue with that.

According to such a logic, light interrupters should indicate GREEN when on and RED when off!

That actually depends on the country/code/application...

Japanese standard:

Red Pilot Light means running(e.g. motor is running)
Green Pilot Light means stop(e.g. motor is stop)
Amber Pilot Light means warning or fault

According to BS / EN 60204:

Red - Hazardous condition
Yellow - Abnormal condition, impending critical condition
Green - Normal condition
Blue - Condition requires action by operator

NFPA 79:

RED - Danger or alarm, abnormal condition requiring immediate attention
YELLOW (AMBER) - Attention, caution / marginal condition. Change or impending change of conditions
GREEN - Machine ready; Safety

I have seen many situations where it almost seems like colors are simply arbitrarily chosen...

One more for the mix:

Red Right Return.

Can you tell us what the owners manual has to say about this issue?

Sorry, force of habit!

Hi Doorman, the manual does not say a word about the colors.... It just explains what each gear is intended for....

Let me be the first to say, "what year and model is it"?

It's a 2012 SRV.

I just recall a Chrysler my father imported from USA in the early 70's which had the gear indicator on the column of the steering wheel. Almost all letters were white, except one that was red ... I guess. As automatic cars are not so common in my country, no idea when that mechanical indicator was replaced by lights on the dashboard, nor if these colors have always been as they are today....

Wet blanket time. When car gets hot enough ( which it will in most areas) Said application will turn into gooey mess.

You have had a terrible experience didn't you? Were there any lasting impairments to you or any other members of your family? Chrysler should have recalled these dangerous vehicles. Allowing poor helpless drivers to be subjected to these miscolored transmission indicator lights could have disastrous consequences. I hope you are doing well after that terrible experience.

I just found this on youtube, what do you say now??????? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J-m6GnuqPF4&feature=youtube_gdata_player

This image belongs to a Subaru 2012. There seems to be no consensus on how to indicate the gear the car is in!

The good news is that the position of the shift lever and its functions are universal, mostly.

I never look, I do it by feel.

Try shifting to N or P when you are underway and you'll see why they are in RED.

Slipping into P on the go causes a bit of excitement but N...? No problem.

If there's no detent (need to push a button or some such) then its OK. D to N, R to N no problem.

Choosing these colours involved thousands of hours of agonising design meetings. that's why it is perfect. Who are you to question it?

The colours are meaningless to blind drivers anyway. Should have Braille....

Green is for GO RED is for stop, how hard is that?

Bazzer

Check this! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J-m6GnuqPF4&feature=youtube_gdata_player

For many colour blind men, it does not matter as green and red are for them indistiguishable from each other without the help of a special filter......

Who needs colours??

Blowing the horn could get interesting.

Hey, can you text on that?

Now that is sort of interesting...

What is that? Looks like a version of the Chrysler typewriter transmission control, located in the steering wheel hub.

What car is in the image?

You may find this difficult to believe, but I thought this was available on the Edsel.

No, not hard to believe. You are absolutely correct. Thanks Bob!

http://www.oobject.com/classic-car-user-interfaces/1958-edsel/3708/

Notice the horn ring is separate from the hub.

That car was an insult to every automotive engineer in the industry.

1958 Edsel Corsair

Photo from Wikipedia.

Was the concept that far away from the Pontiac Grand Prix?

My bro owned a Grand Prix, late 70's I think. For a whale of a car it had a TINY interior with zero headroom.

In 69 the Grand Prix went from the bigger B body used by the Impala, Pontiac Catalina, and Oldsmobile 88 to the smaller G, which was a stretched A body that was used for the Chevelle, Tempest and Cutlass. It was the same as the chassis used for the 70 Monte Carlo.

The pic from WAL looks to be from an Edsel.

I agree completely. I don't think I've ever seen the inside of an Edsel.

When I was about 6 my great uncle had a Chrysler. Even at age 6 the drive selection seemed unusual to me, and he explained it to me as a 'Typewriter Automatic". That was all I got, he really wasn't a real good explainer... but, I was 6.

Located by the driver left knee, sort of like this:

Chrysler had the whole push button auto thing at one stage. They had to drop it for standardisation reasons.

I quite like it.

I wonder what standardised EV "transmission" selection will end up looking like?

Those colors on the dashboard have been chosen to suggest the action. People driving cars are supposed to know what red / green mean in a traffic light (and this is a universal convention), not the color conventions in some electrical code. If cars were to be used according to elcetrical safety codes, you would not be able to open the bonnet and touch a running engine (even if it's a "motor" in most other languages) or open a door while driving (there would be 5 padlocks on every door!!).