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Locked-in!

Nicol Louw By:
Tuesday, March 27th, 2012 08:30 am GMT +2

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If you are afraid of confined spaces – stop reading now. Being claustrophobic is one thing, but even the bravest of us would not like to be locked-in our own vehicle without means of escape. “This will never happen to me”, I hear you say, but don’t be so certain.

An recent interesting call to our offices confirmed that a whole family was once stuck in a Volkswagen Golf 4, when the alternator stopped charging during a long trip. The battery was completely drained, causing the door locks and electric windows to fail. With the sun baking, the car’s cabin became hot and stuffy within minutes and were it not for a passing Good Samaritan, the family would potentially have been in serious trouble.

We asked the caller the exact same questions that are floating in your mind right now: Did you try the windows? What about the unlock button? Did you pull hard enough on the door levers etc? After the lady convinced us that she had tried everything possible, we decided to put this theory to the test by locking each other in various vehicles in our garage. True enough, out of the five vehicles we tested, only two would allow the occupant to exit the car the conventional way.

The reason for this is that door levers in most modern cars are connected to electronic switches – which need power to remain operational. As do electric windows and unlock buttons. Your only hope in this situation might be an emergency boot release tag (anti-hijack) situated in the boot – assuming you can get there. Your last resort might be to break a potentially expensive window – and even that’s not as easy as you might think.

I dare you to go and try the above (not the breaking window part) for yourself by asking a trustworthy friend to lock you in your car, remote in hand, with you sitting inside. You may just find you need a lot of pleading before your “friend” lets you out again! If this experiment scares you then perhaps it’s time to invest in a Lifehammer or equivalent product that allows you to… break the window in case of emergency!


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PLEASE NOTE: The opinion expressed in this article is the author's own and publication does not mean it is endorsed by the CAR magazine editorial staff or RamsayMedia, publishers of CAR magazine.
  • JS

    Very disturbing. What was wrong with the vacuum driven central looking systems of the past? – And then a separate arming system of the anti theft device? Modern auto electronics – and design and engineering in general. More expensive. Less value. Less rugged. Less reliable. Less longevity making for a larger carbon footprint. More finicky. More expensive to repair. And they say the modern automobile is moving in the right direction. Bah!

  • showcars.co.za

    With South Africans often opting for smash & grab window film as an additional security measure, I am not sure even this Lifehammer will help. A friend if mine’s son recently locked himself in their car, together with the only key. After failing to break through the window film with a hammer, he had to drill his way through to free his son. Being trapped in your car must be a scary situation indeed.

  • Kyle Smith

    Rather disturbing story but most German cars, including my Mercedes-Benz, have the feature that if you pull on the door handle on the inside of the car, regardless of whether it is locked or not, there is a mechanical action that lifts up the knob and opens the door to allow for easy entry and exit. I would assume that most cars have this feature? I’m almost certain VW’s have this feature too…

  • EmJay

    And with most of these modern cars locking above 20 kph and staying shut till you remove the key from ignition or press a button somewhere it surely is alarming that even a malfunction of the switch that opens the doors could then render you trapped..

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