Or on a pole or other various object? Is there a sensor to stop someone from getting crushed? Is the window made to break? And what about my sun roof? It seems like this could be a very dangerous thing and I don’t feel like testing it out myself. Any takers? 
Depends on the age of the vehicle and the manufacturer. A few (Mercedes and BMW, primarily) used “two touch” safeguards on windows which made the window stop an inch from completely closing, requiring you to release and press the button again. That was to protect kiddy fingers from being severed.
Those have since been abandoned for auto-reverse systems that open the window a couple of inches if they meet specified amounts of resistance.
However, there is no requirement for sensors, at least in the US; the NTHSA only requires that window switches be recessed, or require a “pull up” action, in order to prevent kids from accidentally closing them.
When my mom closed a power window on my hand, there was an automatic sensor to indicate the problem… “OOOWWWWWW!!!” State of the art 1970’s safety device.
Thankfully, I was pinched against a particularly large and rubbery seal, instead of metal, so I escaped with all digits intact.
In high school, circa 1980, my buddy George worked at a car wash where they took your car and ran it through the wash while you waited outside.
He got into a car - a Buick IIRC, and rolled up the window. The owner was trying to point something out to George but he didn’t see him, and kept on the button. The man’s finger landed in George’s lap.
That’s back in the day. Hopefully we’re smarter today. I’ll go test my Yukon and report back!
When I did it to my 17-year-old son a couple months ago he yelled “Ow”, gave me a dirty look and has not stopped reminding me and any one in the vicinity that I attempted to amputate his hand with the car window.
I don’t think the motors are particularly strong. I have a vague memory pulling a window down while pushing the “up” button to see if I could when I was a kid and being able to overcome the motor even at that young age. I’m kinda skeptical it’d be strong enough to severe anything.
Granted, now that I’m a grown-up and actually own the car and have to pay for broken motors, I don’t think I particularly want to repeat the experiment.
The ADAC had an article in their monthly magazine some time back where they wondered the same thing, so they tested some models by holding an apple in the opening and closing the window. Some motors were strong enough to cut the apple cleanly in half; they said that the force equivalent of that could do serious, up to deadly damage (depending on the body part) to small children (most at risk because they play around) and urged the lawmakers to demand sensors; urged manufacturers to include sensors; urged car buyers, esp. parents, to ask for sensors.
Oh, god, I have a very clear memory of my father shutting the window once when my head was half leaning out. The window squished my eyebrow and pushed my head up, and no, it did not stop at any point, until he stopped it.
To this day I insist that my SO, when driving, not mess with the window settings of my window.
In the UK there’s usually one or two high profile cases a year of kids losing fingers or sometimes even their lives.
Here’s one from a few years back:
http://news.sky.com/home/article/1280304
The argument the car makers use is that the sensors are expensive and unreliable.
However, I have a 1974 Rolls Royce which is 1960s high tech and has no electronics in it apart from the radio. But they came up with a simple system that avoids this problem.
The window motors are powered via a thermal fuse and if there’s an obstruction, the motors get hot, the fuse cuts out and the window glides back down to the fully open. After a couple of minutes the fuse resets and the window works again. Simple, cheap and effective. I’m not sure why it wasn’t adopted by more manufacturers.
Unreliable in low ambient temperatures, maybe.
Doubtful.
However, this type of over-current protection is quite slow to react. Unless the motors are underpowered to begin with, by the time the fuses trip, the damage may have been done.
A girl in my daughter’s kindergarten class, 11 years ago, had a baby/toddler sister whose head or neck was caught in the car window and died. Circumstances were murky, but evidently parents had left the kids in the car alone with the key in the ignition.
Isn’t this the primary reason that power window controls were changed? IIRC kids would sometimes stand up on the armrests (where the controls were located) in order to lean out of the window, they’d inadvertently step on the control and the window would raise pinning them when the window closed on their neck. (the kids didn’t know enough to realize the window was closing because their foot was on the control).
So, now the controls are placed on the center console and/or the function has been re-designed so that pressing down on the button lowers the window instead of raising it.
cough Post #2 cough 
oops…sorry…missed that part of your post.
What I meant to say was…exactly what you said.
Wait, what?
They used to make it so that pushing down on the button raised the window? I am guessing that you pulled up to lower it?
What kind of counter-intuitive logic was used for that decision?
My guess is that it would be either using a rocker switch or two separate buttons, one for up, one for down.
Simples
No, the switches were flat on the panel, and usually *forward *meant up. Something like this. An unlucky kid might step on just that part of the switch.
Ah, thanks. That clears it up.
Same. I remember holding down the electric window on our Volvo with one hand. The motors on them aren’t particularly powerful.