Locked in the Car and Unable to get Out - Food for Thought

[Gordon Gould]

This happened to my wife's friend today. She is elderly and lives alone in a rural spot. She got in the car to go to their little weekly rug hooking session at the town library. Her habit is to lock the doors. She started cranking the car over and it wouldn't start. She cranked until the battery was totally flat. The the doors would not unlock w/o battery power. Panic... Finally she thought to call the dealer to ask how to get out. You can't !!! The dealer came over and jumped the battery before she could get out. Can you believe it.

It is going to be below zero tonight. Wonder if she was in a no cell service zone of which there are many around here or she had no phone with her. No good.

gg

 

[Boss 302]

That is scary, I didn't realize that you couldn't override the door locks with the inside handle.

 

[WranglerX]

Wait till you have a EV and dead battery.....

 

[4570Man]

I’ve never seen a vehicle without a manual lock lever. That sounds like a really poor design.

 

[oldballs]

Lordy..Lordy....What model car was that?

 

[Wolfy]

You should always have a hammer and a pocket knife.

 

[sea2summit]

I find this story really hard to believe. A truck has to have an emergency unlatch from the inside and your telling me there’s a car door you can’t open? How do you drain a car battery completely with a starter? At the point the starter doesn’t turn you still have power to here the solenoid clicking, you don’t have enough power for power locks? What make of car was this?

 

[Thomas]

That's new one on me never gave it thought.

 

[civilian]

This happened to my wife's friend today. She is elderly and lives alone in a rural spot. She got in the car to go to their little weekly rug hooking session at the town library. Her habit is to lock the doors. She started cranking the car over and it wouldn't start. She cranked until the battery was totally flat. The the doors would not unlock w/o battery power. Panic... Finally she thought to call the dealer to ask how to get out. You can't !!! The dealer came over and jumped the battery before she could get out. Can you believe it.

It is going to be below zero tonight. Wonder if she was in a no cell service zone of which there are many around here or she had no phone with her. No good.

gg

Luckily she had enough hand strength to pull the hood latch to pop the hood for the dealer to jump the battery. Jon

 

[Gordon Gould]

Don't know the model or year but my wife has a Honda CRV and there is no manual door unlock. Everything that is programable like door lock is run off sensors and thru the computer. No direct mechanical linkages.

Who knows what a computer does when the voltage goes to almost 0 for a while then returns to a lower than normal value ???

gg