Yeah......that's not it. They were way over on the left side, a good 12 inches from the brake pedal.
Euro cars had them first, Japanese followed. In the 70's, as American cars started getting competition from imports, they emulated some of the features of the imports, and this was one of them.
Frankly I find removing my hand from the steering wheel to dim the lights, especially in bad road conditions, to be a little unsafe. Also unsafe if you have to dim your lights when in a sharp curve and have both hands on the wheel. Under normal conditions (at night), driving with one hand on the wheel, it's not a problem. It's those "two-hands needed" situations that make dimming the light from the turn-signal stalk, a problem. And, of course, how many of us have flashed the high-beams on someone while putting on the turn signal? Just about everybody. Another example of an change that created an unnecessary problem. There was absolutely nothing wrong with the floor mounted dimmer switch. In an automatic-transmission car, your left foot does absolutely nothing while you drive. And the turn signal lever did just that, and nothing else. Headlights on/off? Their own switch. Wipers? Separate switch. Now everythig is gaggled together on one or two stalks. The wiper controls on my Pilot are like something out of a fighter jet. All I need is Low/High/Off. I'm pretty sure with the correct combination of switches on the Stalk, I can get to to send morse code signals to other drivers.