Vehicle door - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

A vehicle door is a partition, typically hinged, but sometimes attached by other mechanisms such as tracks, in front of an opening which is used for entering and exiting a vehicle

Vehicle

A vehicle is a device that is designed or used to transport people or cargo. Most often vehicles are manufactured, such as bicycles, cars, motorcycles, trains, ships, boats, and aircraft....

. A vehicle door can be opened to provide access to the opening, or closed to secure it. These doors are similar to door

Door

A door is a movable structure used to open and close off an entrance, typically consisting of a panel that swings on hinges or that slides or rotates inside of a space....

s used in buildings.

These doors can be opened manually, or powered electronically. Powered doors are usually found on minivan

Minivan

Minivan is a type of van designed for personal use. Minivans are typically either two-box or one box designs for maximum interior volume – and are taller than a sedan, hatchback, or a station wagon....

s, high-end cars, or modified car

Modified car

For the American oval track automobile racing series, see Modified racingThe term modified car is given to any vehicle that has been altered from its original state; most commonly with aftermarket components...

Conventional door

An conventional door, also known as a regular door is a type of door that is hinge

Hinge

A hinge is a type of bearing that connects two solid objects, typically allowing only a limited angle of rotation between them. Two objects connected by an ideal hinge rotate relative to each other about a fixed axis of rotation. Hinges may be made of flexible material or of moving components...

d at the front-facing edge of the door, and so allows the door to swing outward from the body of the car. These doors are relatively safe, in that if they are opened during forward motion of the vehicle, the wind resistance will work against the opening door, and will effectively force its closure

Suicide doors

Suicide doors are a type of door that is hinged on its trailing edge. The term 'suicide door' was coined due to the potential for the door to fly open should the latch be released during forward motion of the vehicle.

Scissor doors

Scissor doors are doors that rotate vertically

Vertical direction

In astronomy, geography, geometry and related sciences and contexts, a direction passing by a given point is said to be vertical if it is locally aligned with the gradient of the gravity field, i.e., with the direction of the gravitational force at that point...

upward, and are hinged at or near the end of the windshield.

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.

Gull-wing doors

Gull-wing doors are a type of door that are hinged on their uppermost edge, at the roof rather than the side. They are so named because, when opened, the doors evoke the image of a seagull opening its wing

Wing

A wing is an appendage with a surface that produces lift for flight or propulsion through the atmosphere, or through another gaseous or liquid fluid...

Sliding doors

Sliding doors are a type of door that open by sliding horizontally or vertically, whereby the door is either mounted on, or suspended from a track. They are often used on the side of commercial vans

Vans

Vans is an American based manufacturer of sneakers, skateboarding shoes, BMX shoes, snowboarding boots and other shoe types.- History :On March 16, 1966, at 704 E. Broadway, in Anaheim, California, brothers Paul Van Doren, James Van Doren, and three other partners opened up their first store...

, as this allows a large opening for equipment to be loaded and unloaded without obstructing access.

Canopy doors

A 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 standards 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, but are frequently used on the 'closed' variants of Le Mans Prototype

Le Mans Prototype

A Le Mans Prototype is a type of sports prototype race car most notably used in the 24 Hours of Le Mans, American Le Mans Series and Le Mans Series...

endurance race cars. They are also sometimes used on concept cars.

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

Power door locks

Power door locks allow the driver or front passenger to simultaneously lock or unlock all the doors of an automobile or truck, by pressing a button or flipping a switch....

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. These are also frequently used on Police cars, to prevent suspect criminals from escaping whilst in Police custody.

Vehicle door latches on practically all vehicles today are usually operated by use of a handle which requires the user to pull, lift, or tug - with some force towards themselves rather than push. There is a reason for this. As late as the 1970s

1970s

File:1970s decade montage.png|From left, clockwise: US President Richard Nixon doing the V for Victory sign after his resignation from office after the Watergate scandal in 1974; Refugees aboard a US naval boat after the Fall of Saigon, leading to the end of the Vietnam War in 1975; The 1973 oil...

, some vehicles used exposed push buttons to operate the door latch, such as certain Opel

Opel

Adam Opel AG, generally shortened to Opel, is a German automobile company founded by Adam Opel in 1862. Opel has been building automobiles since 1899, and became an Aktiengesellschaft in 1929...

models. The unfortunate side effect

Unintended consequence

In the social sciences, unintended consequences are outcomes that are not the outcomes intended by a purposeful action. The concept has long existed but was named and popularised in the 20th century by American sociologist Robert K. Merton...

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

Supreme Court of California

The Supreme Court of California is the highest state court in California. It is headquartered in San Francisco and regularly holds sessions in Los Angeles and Sacramento. Its decisions are binding on all other California state courts.-Composition:...

merged strict product liability

Product liability

Product liability is the area of law in which manufacturers, distributors, suppliers, retailers, and others who make products available to the public are held responsible for the injuries those products cause...

with comparative fault

Comparative responsibility

Comparative responsibility is a doctrine of tort law that compares the fault of each party in a law suit for a single injury...

, and thereby affirmed the right of General Motors

General Motors

General Motors Company , commonly known as GM, formerly incorporated as General Motors Corporation, is an American multinational automotive corporation headquartered in Detroit, Michigan and the world's second-largest automaker in 2010...

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.

Windows

Most vehicle doors have windows

Car glass

Car glass includes windscreens, side and rear windows, and glass panel roofs on a vehicle. Side windows can be either fixed or be raised and lowered by depressing a button or switch or using a hand-turned crank. The power moonroof, a transparent, retractable sunroof, may be considered as an...

, and most of these may be opened to various extents. Most car door windows retract downwards into the body of the doors, and are opened either with a manual crank, or switchable electrical motor (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 van

Van

A van is a kind of vehicle used for transporting goods or groups of people.In British English usage, it can be either specially designed or based on a saloon or sedan car, the latter type often including derivatives with open backs...

s, 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 quarter glass

Quarter glass

Quarter glass on automobiles and closed carriages may be a side window in the front door or located on each side of the car just forward of the rear window of the vehicle. Only some cars have them. In some cases the fixed quarter glass may set in the corner or "C-pillar" of the vehicle...

window in to fill out the forward, non-rectangular portion of the upper half of the front door. 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

Nissan Sunny

The Nissan Sunny is a small car from Nissan. It was launched in 1966 as the Datsun 1000 and although production in Japan ended in 2004, it remains in production today for the African, American and Sri Lankan markets. In the US, the later models were known as the Nissan Sentra; in Mexico, the Sunny...

, are operated with and locked shut with a pivoting latch, often with a push button lock. Several older US cars feature electrically controlled varieties.

Door brakes or stays

Vehicle doors often include brake

Brake

A brake is a mechanical device which inhibits motion. Its opposite component is a clutch. The rest of this article is dedicated to various types of vehicular brakes....

s, or 'stays', that slow the door down just before it closes, and also prevent the door opening further than its design specification. The current trend 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, automotive manufacturers

Automotive industry

The automotive industry designs, develops, manufactures, markets, and sells motor vehicles, and is one of the world's most important economic sectors by revenue....

managed to construct 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.

Usage

Front doors
Rear doors
Hatch
Hatchback
A Hatchback is a car body style incorporating a shared passenger and cargo volume, with rearmost accessibility via a rear third or fifth door, typically a top-hinged liftgate—and features such as fold-down rear seats to enable flexibility within the shared passenger/cargo volume. As a two-box...

(categorised as a door in Europe, see “Door categorization” below.)

Door categorization

Hatchback

A Hatchback is a car body style incorporating a shared passenger and cargo volume, with rearmost accessibility via a rear third or fifth door, typically a top-hinged liftgate—and features such as fold-down rear seats to enable flexibility within the shared passenger/cargo volume. As a two-box...

and estate or station wagon

Station wagon

A station wagon is a body style variant of a sedan/saloon with its roof extended rearward over a shared passenger/cargo volume with access at the back via a third or fifth door , instead of a trunk lid...

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 or sedans and coupé

Coupé

A coupé or coupe is a closed car body style , the precise definition of which varies from manufacturer to manufacturer, and over time...

s, the boot lid is not counted as a door by definition because it is for a separate storage compartment - these cars are sold as 'two-door' or 'four-door'. This system is mainly used in Europe

Europe

Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

, but is less common in North America

North America

North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...

. 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.

Parts

Door card
Door card
A door card or a door panel is an insert on the door of a car that covers the door's internal components. The door card will usually match the rest of the interior and in modern cars it is usually made of plastic, although it may be covered in vinyl or leather....
Door handle
Door switch
Switch
In electronics, a switch is an electrical component that can break an electrical circuit, interrupting the current or diverting it from one conductor to another....
Glass window
Power window
Power windows or electric windows as well as electric or power window lifts are automobile windows which can be raised and lowered by depressing a button or switch, as opposed to using a hand-turned crank handle.- History :Packard introduced the first power windows in the 1940 Packard...
Pillar
Pillar (car)
Pillars are the vertical supports of the greenhouse of an automobile — known respectively as the A, B, C or D-pillar moving in profile view from the front to rear....
Door locks
Power door locks
Power door locks allow the driver or front passenger to simultaneously lock or unlock all the doors of an automobile or truck, by pressing a button or flipping a switch....

which can work on a remote system
Remote keyless system
A remote keyless system is a system designed to permit or deny access to premises or automobiles. While the "remote" system is portable and has locking capabilities, the exact phrase "keyless entry" is solely reserved for the numeric dials or keypads that are located on or near the driver side door...
Interior storage compartment

Door switch

Door switches are simple on/off mechanisms connected to the interior light (dome light), and may also be connected to a warning 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.

Being doored

Some cyclists refer to colliding with an open car door as "being doored". This usually happens when the cyclist is riding alongside a row of parallel-parked cars, and a driver suddenly opens his or her door immediately in front of the cyclist without first looking to see if it is safe to do so.