A vehicle door is a partition, typically hinged, but also frequently attached by other mechanisms such as tracks, in front of an opening which is used for entering and exiting a vehicle. A vehicle door can be opened to provide access to the opening, or closed to secure it. These doors are similar to a doors used in buildings.
These doors can be opened manually, or powered electronically. Powered doors are usually found on minivans, high-end cars, or modified cars.
There are many different types of car door. These are the types.
[edit] OEM or regular
An OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer) door (also known as a conventional door or regular door) is a type of door that is hinged at the front-facing edge of the door and so allows the door to swing outward from the body of the car
[edit] Suicide doors
Main article:
Suicide doorSuicide doors are a type of door that is hinged on its trailing edge.
[edit] Scissor doors
Main article:
Scissor doorsScissor doors are doors that rotate vertically upward and are hinged at a near the end of the windshield.
[edit] Butterfly doors
Butterfly doors are a type of door that are similar to scissor doors, but while scissor doors move up, butterfly doors also move outwards, which makes for easier entry/exit and saves space.
[edit] Gull-wing doors
Main article:
Gull-wing doorGull-wing doors are a type of door that are hinged at the roof rather than the side. They are so named because, when opened, the doors evoke the image of a seagull's wings.
[edit] Sliding doors
Sliding doors are a type of door that open by sliding horizontally, whereby the door is either mounted on or suspended from a track. They are often used on the side of commercial vans, as this allows a large opening for equipment to be loaded and unloaded without obstructing access.
[edit] Canopy doors
Main article:
Canopy doorA canopy door is a type of door that sits on top of a car and lifts up in some way, to provide access for passengers. It is similar to an aircraft canopy. There are no set rules to canopies, so they can be hinged at the front, side or back, although hinging at the front is most common. Canopy doors are rarely used on production cars, and are sometimes used on concept cars.
[edit] Door locks and latches
Most vehicle doors are secured closed to the vehicle body with latches which may be locked to prevent unauthorized access from the exterior. There are a variety of car door locking systems. Door locks may be manually or automatically operated, and may be centrally or individually operated. Also, they may be operated by remote control, with the transmitter often integrated into the main vehicle access / ignition key.
Additionally, rear passenger doors are frequently fitted with child safety locks to prevent children from exiting the vehicle unless the door is opened from the exterior.
Vehicle door latches on practically all vehicles today are usually operated by use of a handle which requires the user to pull or tug with some force towards themselves rather than push. There is a reason for this. As late as the 1970s, some vehicles used exposed push buttons to operate the door latch, such as certain Opel models. The unfortunate side effect of this design was that external objects which touched a vehicle during a spinout could trigger the latch; the door would pop open and eject the vehicle occupants. A death which occurred exactly that way led to the landmark legal case of Daly v. General Motors Corp., 20 Cal. 3d 725 (1978), in which the Supreme Court of California merged strict product liability with comparative fault, and thereby affirmed the right of General Motors to introduce evidence that decedent Kirk Daly flew out of his Opel not only because the door popped open, but because he was intoxicated and not wearing a seat belt.
[edit] Windows
Most vehicle doors have windows, and most of these may be opened to various extents. Most car door windows retract into the body of the doors, and are opened with a manual crank or electrical switch (electric car windows other than the driver's window can usually be controlled at both the door itself and centrally by an additional control at the driver's position). In the past, certain retracting windows were operated by direct (up or down) pressure and were held in the up position by friction instead of by an internal lift mechanism.
Other cars (particularly older US-manufactured vans) have hinged windows with a folded lever mechanism to push and hold the window out from its closed position.
One other no-longer common configuration is a triangular window in to fill out the forward, non-rectangular portion of the upper half of the front door. This is often called quarter glass. These windows pivot on a vertical access and the portion that is pushed outside, given the angle of incidence with the car's direction of forward motion, pushes external air into the vehicle. Such windows, as found on the Nissan Sunny, are operated with and locked shut with a pivoting latch, often with a push button lock.
[edit] Door brakes
Vehicle doors often include brakes that slow the door down just before it closes. The current standard is to have a three-stage door brake.
Door brakes exist because the doors on the first vehicles were heavy, so they had to be pushed hard to make them close. Soon after, manufacturers managed to manufacture lighter doors, but users were used to closing doors with force so doors quickly became damaged. Door brakes were then introduced to slow down the door just before the door closed to prevent damage; these soon became standard.
[edit] Door categorization
Hatchback and estate bodies are sold as 'three-door' or 'five-door' models. In these cases, the rear hatch is classified as a door; this is because it enters the passenger compartment. With other vehicles such as saloons and coupés, the boot lid is not counted as a door by definition because it is for a separate storage compartment - these cars are sold as '2 door' or '4 door'. This system is mainly used in Europe, but is less common in North America. In Europe, the American-style labelling is occasionally used.
Usually in North America, cars are only sold as "two-door" or "four-door" models. This American-style labelling only includes the passengers' and driver's doors, and not hatches on hatchbacks and station wagons. This has led to many not understanding that hatches are counted as doors in Europe, whilst the lids to sealed trunks aren't.
[edit] Door switch
Door switches are simple on/off mechanisms connected to a light, speaker or other device to inform the driver when the door is not closed. The door light is standard equipment on all cars. In American cars from the 1950s-1990s, they had buzzers or "door dingers" that sounded, along with the check light, whenever any door is open.
[edit] Being doored
Some cyclists refer to colliding with an open car door as "being doored".[1] This usually happens when the cyclist is biking alongside a row of parallel-parked cars, and a driver suddenly opens his or her door immediately in front of the cyclist.
[edit] See also
[edit] References