Topic: What's special about that car #1 - Solved! Los Gatos police car

[Paul Jaray]

1- a door like that it's useless if you can open it (like when parked in a narrow place) but it's useful only if you need to drive with it wide open. Now, I wonder, when does a policeman need to drive with the door open while is checking the parked cars?
2- is the driver's door only the "magic" one? In this case the policeman needs it open while He is driving...

[faksta]

It was used in a country where one drives on the right side. So, driving the car near parked cars the policeman would have to open the door to get out and stick a ticket to the car, but he wouldn't succeed, as he would be very close to the violators. Thus, the door has always been wide open. Any truth here?

EDIT: But I see PJ was faster with the same thought 

It could be useful on the street when the cars are parked on a curb, couldn't it?

[Paul Jaray]

Yep, but wouldn't a normal window do the trick?

[faksta]

But you will have to stick the ticket under the wiper, and that will be hard to do throught the window. I didn't ever try, but that's what I think...

[Paul Jaray]

My first thought, too, but why the driver?
I guess for checking the parking lines? I mean if a car is correctly parked inside the spot? In this case he needs to look down...

[Ray B.]

In his reply #26, faksta explains correctly the reason for the special door. He also points - more clearly than Otto who had just implied it - that it's a country where you drive on the right side of the road. Although you came quite close, none of you found the exact job of this cop, because you didn't pay enough attention to my last post (I may have misled you by approving Otto's "parking law enforcement": The "enforcement" part isn't that important here.).

Let's declare this one solved: I think we are getting nowhere.
The place is Los Gatos, California. The cop's job, says the magazine, is to check the parking meters.  That's why his car is RHD. He has to drive slowly and maybe stop every eight yards (and eventually step out, whether to collect the coins from the meters, whether to put a ticket under a wiper, the magazine doesn't say). He has to stay close to the parked cars along the curb so other cars can pass him on his left. So he cannot open his door because he'll dent all the parked cars. That's why his door is fixed in an opened position.

One point for Otto who found out that this had to do with parking laws.
One for faksta who explained (a bit later than Paul I admit, but much more completely) the relationship between the special door and the parked cars.