I took my mother and one of my step-sisters xmas-gift-certificate shopping yesterday. Since I had my driver side rear seat stowed (earlier in the week, the passenger-side seat was layed flat as well, making a great on-the-road gift wrapping area), the were both on the passenger side (front and rear).

Watching them try to figure out how to properly exit the car without getting trapped by the doors in tight parking lot spots nearly made me cry. :(

There should be an info-card in the rear seat pocket showing proper disembarkation procedures for tight parking spots!

-brendan

[quote:57f4fbc71d=" "]Watching them try to figure out how to properly exit the car without getting trapped by the doors in tight parking lot spots nearly made me cry. :(

There should be an info-card in the rear seat pocket showing proper disembarkation procedures for tight parking spots!
[/quote:57f4fbc71d]

Brendan,

What do you think is the right way? When the space is really tight it seems like you have to do this:
-front passenger opens front door and holds it so that it doesn't hit the car next to you
-rear passgr opens rear door
-rear passgr climbs out and steps up next to the front passenger
-rear passgr closes rear door, walks to back of vehicle
-front passgr gets out.

If you have a little more room, then the order is not so critical, as long as they don't both jump out at the same time and get penned in by the doors.

Bill

That sounds about right, assuming the rear passenger is one you can trust wandering about in the parking lot without a hand hold (e.g. not your younger kids). Alternates proposed are:

1) don't use the back door and pretend the car is a two-door by pushing the front seat up or if your passengers are small, they can walk through the center absent-console area as well. Come to think of it, if the designers looked at these doors as primarily to ease cargo loading and not for passenger use, that may be how they envisioned passenger exit/entry. That also partly explains why the front driver seat can move up so much (front passenger seat flexibility can be for cargo purposes, of course, but the driver's seat will always be back for driving).

2) front passenger disembarks, closes front door 90% of the way, walks around it and re-opens it from the front of the car and holds it open but remembers to protect neighboring car from dings, rear passenger disembarks (opening and closing his/her door), then front passenger closes his/her door (similar problem as yours).

3) More fanciful approaches using the rear hatch or skylight or custom climb-over-car ladders if so equipped. :)

Mostly the problem seems to be that courteous passengers always want to make sure the door doesn't ding the neighbor's car and are therefore in the way while standing outside the car (unless they don't mind being very close to the rear passenger on exit).

-brendan

The same problem in parking lots (particularly Metrorail) in Northern VA. Best thing to do is let the passengers out before you park.

NBP AWD EX

[quote:fdb8a6f99e=" "]The same problem in parking lots (particularly Metrorail) in Northern VA. Best thing to do is let the passengers out before you park.

NBP AWD EX[/quote:fdb8a6f99e]

I'd have to agree with this. The last time I was parking one of the passengers in the rear got out and slammed the rear door on the front one!