That’s why you can’t open a car door in that moment, when someone is trying to access it simultaneously from the inside

The mystery of the mechanism of opening the door on the example of the Volkswagen beetle

This has happened to every motorist at least once in your life: you are near a car, wanting to sit inside. At this point, inside the car already is the man who, wanting to help you, also trying to open the door by unlocking the lock and Tien the handle. The paradox is that both are similar in their logic of action with the same vector of desired are canceled one another, leaving both men on either side of the door in a logical impasse continues over and over again to pull the handle in their futile attempts to open the door. In the end, someone can not stand, shouting to the second well-wishers stopped trying to open the door, and the nightmare ends. The question remains: why so? What’s going on here?

And really, why can’t we open the unlocked door in this case? Why such a fundamental mechanism of the car has such an annoying flaw? The answer is simple mechanics (though, as we shall see, nothing is simple in the mechanism snaps into is actually not).

So what happens with the doors?

The most logical possible explanation to all this mess, most likely, is that door there is a modest, small mechanical part inside, which antivirus handle open, crashing into another mechanical part, which in turn stands in a certain (wrong) position due to impact on her at the same moment the other person. Alone any one of them could easily have reached the desired, but together they get a logic puzzle, interlocking each other.

It seems that it is very easy to understand, right? You have no idea how wrong you are. Device door locks upon closer examination, absurd, pointless and difficult. Stay with us and you will see how.

To understand what’s going on here, first we need to see how to actually operate these latches in cars. Let’s examine the mechanism on the example of two classical systems of opening/closing, hidden behind door panels, presented in two different cars. As they say, come from old and simple to modern and more complex.

Let’s start simple. Volkswagen Beetle 1973 car, which had been based on technical developments already 38-years, with the lock system on the door, which since then has undergone minimal changes. All lock system was initiated in 1968. Look at this dinosaur closer.

General view of the mechanism:

The principle of operation of the door following: the door locks with C-shaped door latch, which interacts with a pin on the center rack. When the door is closed C-shaped lock pivots down, gripping the pin, thereby securely locking the door and preventing it from opening.

When the handle is pulled with the inner or outer side of the door, the latch is rotated to its original “open” position, allowing you to get out of the car. It’s simple!

When you activate the button lock part of the mechanism slide into place, preventing movement of the latch. You can see the progress of the locking parts comprising the closure mechanism here:

This mechanism of lock/unlock is in direct contact with the door latch, which is directly connected with the inner and outer door handles. This means that the reason you can’t pull the lock button, when someone presses at the same time the trigger door handles, is that both processes are interrelated.

Schematic representation of the interaction of parts of the mechanism of a Volkswagen Beetle:

Now, to understand the nuances of what is going on here, we need to get the old system to the light of day.

How to operate the old locks

The Volkswagen Beetle is the rods connecting the door handle and the lock button with latch.

On the Central front of the “Bug” is fixed, the host part of the mechanism:

The active portion of the latch in the open position (i.e. door is opened):

But in whatever position would be the latch, if the door was closed:

To understand how this works, take a look at the photo below. On the back side of the forked latch is the mechanism by which the seizure of the receiving part (shown above). As you can see, the locking element is spring-loaded and held in place using the “unlocking mechanism”. When this item is the unlocking mechanism moves up and to the side, the spring will tend to rotate the latch, thus unlocking the door.

Now let’s see how it looks when the latch rotates the locking lever:

Here’s how it looks from the other side:

It is logical that all this machinery involves the operation of the unlocking mechanism of two options – inside and out.

Pulling the door to the outer door handle, you turn the spring loaded actuator operating on the principle of clutch that uses the pivot point for translating rotary motion into horizontal. Here’s a look:

Showing brackets right

Then this bracket puts the top of the lock, turns it and takes clips, which in turn rotates under the spring force, opening the door latch and thus the door.

Why can’t you unlock and open it at the same time? Example “The Beatles”

So why you cannot access from inside and outside?

“Beetle” is not pulling the handle on the outside and at the same time unlock the car from the inside due to the interaction of the finger on the bracket and fitting on the latch.

Before we get to that, let’s see how the mechanism to lock/unlock.

To unlock the door of this “Beatle”, the bracket should be moved down directly through the cylinder for the key on the outside or through the internal latch, which pulls the rod shown in the photograph above.

This rod rotates the connection of the lock, directing the left side of the castle down, thus pushing the whole bracket. The key to unlock the car is that when the holder is opened, the unblocking element is to the right of the bracket, so when you pull the handle from the outside, thereby pull the bracket to the right, the firing mechanism works, the latch will be rotated by going to the “open”position.

As for why you can’t open the door from the inside when it is locked. When you lock the car from inside or outside, the bracket moves down and rotates the lock in a certain position. Attempt to pull the handle in the cabin will result in interference between the lock and the handle.

So, now that you know how the lock works, imagine that the car is locked, as shown above, and you decide to pull the knob. Clip moves to the right, and the finger is directly above the fitting. Unlock the car (move the bracket down) would be impossible, since the fitting and the finger will interfere with each other.

Thus, you have to release the button of the door and then try to unlock it again.

Pulling the inside door handle (represented by the blue arrow in the lower right corner), you will not be able to unlock the door. Looking at the photo above, you can see that when you pull the inner door handle turning mechanism of the handle presses the lock mechanism. So when you pull the lock button, it will not be able to crank out connection to the side and the door will remain locked.

As you can see, the design is a one of a rebus. Seriously – it is easier to imagine in mind how the internal combustion engine than to rake all of these engineering blockages of these mechanical locks. And because we have considered a rather rude and simple machine!

In General terms, the way it works. Understand? Well. Here are the secrets you can dig up, asking the simple question: “Why can’t I open the door at the same time with his friend, pulling the opening handle on the inside?”

Generally, it is surprising that some familiar things that we use every day and taken us for granted are actually incredibly complex and extremely interesting. Perhaps, after reading these arguments, you will reach something more, by revisiting the reality around us and learning a little bit more to appreciate all that surrounds us. Personally, I need the conclusions made.