What is the point of automatically locking doors?

Question

What is the point of having the car doors automatically lock once the vehicle reaches a minimum speed?

My initial though on hearing about this "feature" 15+ years ago was that the manufacturers had so little faith in their door latches that they thought that locking would help prevent the doors from opening in an accident. I realize this is a somewhat farcical line of thinking...

I've always found it annoying to have the doors lock themselves, as I prefer to be allowed to do things for myself instead of having someone else think for me. I find it extra annoying now that I have a vehicle that has a fairly bright light on each door that indicates that the door is locked - a "feature" that I didn't notice during the daylight hours test drive.

What problem is the automatic door locking trying to solve?

Answer 1

Modern automatic door locking is more of a safety feature to keep whats inside in and what is outside out.

Kids might try to open doors. In that case, unlocked doors can be a problem. Worse, car jacking is becoming prevalent. Anyone who tries to open a door on your car when you have come to a stop light, will not be able to get in.

From the standpoint of escaping a wrecked vehicle, technology has made it where they doors will automatically unlock when the airbag goes off.

As grown adults, we can choose for ourselves if we want this feature enabled or not. Most cars have a programming feature to disable automatic locking.

Answer 2

I agree with CharlieRB's commentary above. And just to extend his car jacking comment this unlocked door vulnerability comes up a ton in the context of self defense. There's a bunch of carjacking videos on YouTube where a criminal basically walks up to a car and opens the door and invites himself in. This guy John correia who does surveillance camera analysis always recommends locking your doors whenever you're in the vehicle. I've made it a habit too after watching so many brazen car jackings from his analyses, would even be better to let the car automatically take car of it in case one forgets.