Another who just likes buttons. Actually, buttons and switches and gadgets of all kinds. I like to mess with stuff.
I’m also addicted to self-checkout lines at stores. I’ll wait in line to use one.
I try to pull the door open, because it just seems lazy to pish the big blue button. However, some handi-doors are very hard to pull open by hand; there’s a lot of friction from the gearing mechanisms, motors and so on. There’s almost no choice but to push the blue button; otherwise, yo just feel like you’re working against some mechanism and breaking the door in the process.
Hmmm…the disabled door is right next to the revolving door. The revolving door has some loose strips of vinyl flooring in there and I have lost count of the times I’ve caught my heels in there and nearly come a cropper trying to get out. The disabled door is so much safer!
This is my answer, substituting public library for Post Office. There isn’t a different door to use. The door is so hard to open without the button it feels as if you must be breaking it. (Anyone grow up with a screen door with a closer on it and if you pushed or pulled the door closed it was difficult and your parents told you not to force it? It’s like that times ten.)
One that I do use a lot is for a mall that doesn’t have many entrances to the outside, if that makes any sense. Anyway, this door is VERY hard to open by hand, but it opens out to an indoor walkway that is climate controlled by the same system as the mall.
Actually he is correct, it wastes a significant amount of energy. I was an HVAC mechanic at a hospital. We had a hard time convincing the admin they could save money by changing the lobby doors to double doors with enough space that at least one set would be closed almost all of the time.
They did not believe arguments and articles. So in the old Lotus 1-2-3 I charted and graphed the temperature change and energy consumption for a 2 week period. We could see the downward spike in temp and rise in energy use that represented when shifts changed and visiting hours ended. It was a very clear picture and this got the lobby remodeled. Someone in the finance department took my simple numbers and showed that the construction work would be paid for in energy saving in under two years.
Jim
If my hand are full, I’ll press it for the same reason as Qadgop the Mercotan. Although every once in a while I’ll press the button, just because it’s there. And yes, I realize that costs the owners money.
What can I say? If there were a big, red, shiny “history eraser” button, and I had to guard it, I’d only last about 3 minutes before having to press it. 
I have a 2 year old and a 2 month old. I’ve got my hands full all the time.
Yeah, my Mom used to say “Anyone who doesn’t think four kids is a handicap, doesn’t understand the definition of ‘handicap’.”
I tend to not use the buttons, mainly because I move faster than they do, but I kind of doubt that the mechanisms are particularly delicate (not that I have evidence, but it just seems to me that it would have to be pretty sturdy to work at all). I’m vaguely amused by the notion that there is a preset number of openings and that non-disabled people might be using them all up.
Why is this an issue? The purpose of the door opener is to open the door. If that’s how someone wants to do it, that’s fine.
People use curb cuts for things other than wheelchairs. Should they be criticized for using it for a stroller or bicycle?
The issue is: if the curb cut or door opener was specifically installed for people with some sort of disability, and they really, really need it to get around, should it be used by people who really don’t need it, given that they may wear it out more quickly, causing loss of use and extra expense or other problems (heating/cooling)? Of course, if you feel that “extra wear and tear” is one hell of a lame argument, and you think the other potential problems are overblown, then by all means you have no reason not to use the door opener or curb cut.
There’s another issue: usually, when I see one of those buttons, it has a big blue outline drawing of a wheelchair on it. It seems as though the building management is trying to tell us something there. On the other hand, if the button has nothing indicating intended users, well, maybe management wants everyone to use it. Whether you give a fig about what the building management wants is another question.
No one appears to be criticizing anyone for using the button. Asking about something that one does not understand is not criticism.
I usually hit the button if I know other people are behind me. Get a couple people in a row and you can just stream through the door with nobody having to stay behind to hold it.
It bugs me to no end.
At the “L” station, there is always someone who has to hit the button, and they usually don’t have anything in their hands. And since the door opener is specifically designed to let a person in a wheelchair through, the door winds up staying open many times longer than if they had opened it manually. So they’re halfway down the train platform and the wind is blasting the rest of us who are waiting for the train going the opposite direction.
And having repaired door openers and closers, if the only people who hit the button were those who actually needed the button, they’d last a lot longer and always be available for their intended users.
The environmental issue is a big one. A theater my wife and I visit a lot has a very poor design - one rotating door and two standard double doors on each side. When you go through a rotating door, it lets a specific limited amount of treated air out and untreated air in. But if someone goes through the double doors, the wind just blows through. It’s a significant cost. I’ve been standing in that lobby in a Chicago winter and a line of people can come through the rotating door with no change of temperature. But here comes one person who can’t be bothered to wait to go through the rotating door - and the temperature in the lobby will drop 10 to 20 degrees in winter as the cold air rushes in. The HVAC system has to work hard to keep up with the drop.
Many of the restrooms where I work have door openers installed and you really have to lean on them to open them manually. Easier to just hit the button. Same for the pushbutton doors at the mall. It almost takes a shoulder to open them manually.
I doubt any of us have a problem with non-disabled people who need the door opened automatically, such as those with strollers or shopping carts or who have their hands full. No one should feel defensive if that’s the case. I’ll even go so far as to cheer those who are at the front of a group of people who push the button so they can all go in together, as Cyberhwk does. I do that myself.
It’s when one person, ONE person, pushes the button because they’re too damned lazy to just open the door, especially in the winter or summer, letting in cold or hot air longer than need be, that presses my door rage button.
And yeah, people should be using the revolving doors too, unless there is a specific reason why they can’t. Higher energy costs get passed along to all of us in one way or another.
I know these posts are years old but I just came across this site and since I actually am in a wheelchair, I definitely have something to say about able-bodied persons hitting the button on automatic doors. Yes, it absolutely does cause the buttons and the door itself to break down more often. I have to struggle with broken doors all the time and when I ask the manager or someone about it they tell me it’s because kids are pounding on the button so much it’s broken. As well, when I have a long wait by a door for the wheelchair bus, it’s freezing cold in the winter when almost everyone pushes the button because the door stays open a long time. As for the door being difficult to open and therefore this is an excuse for just pushing the button-- it’s hard to pull because it’s a mechanized door. It would take less time and effort to just grab the other door. It’s okay if you have packages or a baby stroller or a bad shoulder, otherwise it is offensive to people in wheelchairs to have to see one person after another who doesn’t need to push the button, pushing the button. Heaven forbid there were no automatic door openers. What would you able-bodied people do-- wait for someone in a wheelchair to come along and rescue you from the arduous task of opening the door by opening it for you?:rolleyes:
I hate myself for doing this – I’d 10,000 times rather just open the door myself than have a special button to do so.
But 10% of automatic doors have a passive-aggressive sign saying “don’t use the button unless you need to” and 10% of automatic doors have a passive-aggressive sign saying “pushing this door damages the door, PLEASE DON’T DO IT”. Most of them seem to start opening automatically when you push them (and hence don’t shut naturally however you open them).
So I hate myself to always guessing wrong, but seriously, how does everyone else tell which doors are damaged by pushing the button and which are damaged by NOT pushing the button?
OK, I’m a lazy waste-of-oxygen, but the effort I’m not going to is not “pushing the door”, but “finding the manufacturer, asking which is better, coming back, and fixing a sign to the door to tell people not to do…”
I second everything you said! I’m disabled as well and it can get BLOODY cold in Edmonton in the winter (high today is MINUS 27C - I’ll leave converting it to F as an exercise). I wait for the bus for the disabled just inside a pair of doors that can be opened with a button. If you push the button, BOTH open and STAY open for several seconds. Please - I’m trying to stay warm guys!! I do try to make it inconvenient to get at the one on the inside (by parking myself right beside it) unless I see someone coming that needs it, but it doesn’t stop people pushing the outside one. There is also a second pair of doors right beside the automatic ones, so you don’t need to exert yourself pulling a slightly more difficult to open door.
Am I to understand that you can tell by looking at someone that they are not recovering from some injury that requires them to use the button?
Because, as someone who has used it for exactly that reason, it was my first guess. I looked hearty and hale, at the time, and had things in my arms.