always unlocked from inside?

I have a suspicion if you tried it while driving over 15mph the door would not open.

 

Sounds like we need to run some (careful) experiments...

 

thought the same. There is a mechanical feature that the front doors always open regardless of the lock position. Tried it myself at about 25 last week. Back doors can be set to not open with the child safe lock feature, but without changing the child safe position the default action is same as front doors.

 

So the doors can always be opened from the inside regardless of the lock position or speed the car is traveling? Wow, that does not sound safe at all.

 

I assumed it had this feature as well, but I just checked the manual. Despite the automatic locking (can also be set to occur at 12 MPH on the three and four), the manual warns that the doors can be opened while the vehicle is in motion, and to, well, not do that.

 

Well, that's just silly. Most people don't *intentionally* open a car door while it is in motion. As a child, I once fell out of a moving car because the locks were defective. It was not a pleasant experience (for myself or for my uncle who thought he had killed me). I can kind of understand Toyota's reasoning, but still... And I'm not sure such a disclaimer/warning would prevent them from being sued by a determined person.

 

Another update, was curious so tried this in the back seats tonight. When doors are locked the back doors do not open. It seems the fronts have the mechanism to always open but the backs may not (unless my child safety tabs were in the safe position and I didn't know it). Hmmm.

 

Yes, and thank goodness. I didn't lock the doors, so I don't want to fight the car in unlocking the doors. For the record, I was in an awful car crash years ago where I ended up at the bottom of a river; if the doors were locked I may not have made it out alive.

Also, most German cars automatically unlock as you pull the handle from the inside too. On BMW's specifically, you have to pull once to unlock, then pull again to open. I've never been a fan of automatically locking doors; they're mainly a mental thing. Doors are already federally mandated to have a double latch system, the "locking" just deactivates the handles from functioning.

 

Fascinating discussion - all cars I've ever known have had the driver's door handle always open the door regardless of lock position. It could be a local regulation. We were also always brought up to leave the doors unlocked for safety in the event of an accident and I still drive that way - I'll only lock the doors when driving through "interesting" or high pedestrian areas and will unlock them again as soon as possible.

The US manual confirms the front doors are meant to do this on p.66:

http://www.toyota.com/t3Portal/document/om/OM52B58U/pdf/sec_1-3.pdf

The Australian c does not have an automatic door locking/unlocking system at all. If it did I'd deactivate it.

 

Even though you can still open the doors when they're locked?

 

Absolutely. It's just how I was brought up. Say I'm in an accident and my door is inoperable or blocked and I'm unable to get myself to another door without assistance - if other doors are operable, it is in my interests for them to be openable from the outside. Or indeed even if I'm in some way incapacitated and my door is fine - someone could open it from outside and provide assistance.

 

On my C the doors remain locked while BACKING UP. I know this because I often have to open the door to look back when backing into my parking lot. If the car is moving backwards I cannot open the door. I have to open the door first while the car is not moving.

I have not tried opening a door while moving forward as of yet. But I will try this evening to open the door while moving forward.