User Centered

I drive* a 2000 Toyota Tundra Access Cab.. the kind with the poor man's version of suicide doors**? Well, if anyone has ever tried to load groceries into this thing or worse- your child, in the middle of the parking lot with another car just a tad too close to you (that never happens right?), you soon realize the design flaws here...


In the 2000 Tundra- the back door of the cab can not be opened unless the front is opened first. But if you're standing in the middle, trying to open two doors that your body is in the way of blocking, you look like an idiot trying to contort your body around these doors.

Once you've succeeded- you realize that you have now caged yourself off from the known world. Pinned between your car's interior, your two doors and the car behind you. Not too bad a proposition, until you realize that your groceries and child are on the other side of the doors. So you have to load them all up while opening and closing the door each time (why not put everything in the back? -I live in Minnesota)

Why can't regular vehicles like pickup trucks have the minivan sliding door? I would buy a minivan JUST for the doors. Why can't we have more of this? If it's cool enough for a Pave Hawk , it should be cool enough for my truck. I say put a sliding drivers door on a Ford F-350 and Chevy Corvette to immediately take the stigma of "soccermom" off it. Granted it might be a bit harder to implement on a sports car. But still- we could reduce door dings, get in and out of cars easier, we don't have to worry about proping the door open with our backs when we park on a hill. There are so many advantages.

**I realize the Tundra is now available with four doors that open like a car. The Nissan Titan rear door opens to lay almost flush with the truck body. Both of these show that engineers recognized the problem with these types of doors.. but why did they every think this was a good idea?