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For a trip earlier this year we ended up borrowing a vehicle. The vehicle and I got along in most things, but we did not get along in one particular area: the door kept attacking my leg.

After a week, I ended up with 3 gashes in my leg.

The reason was that the door had a bottom section that curved, so there was a sharp edge protruding. Anything that is right next to the door while it is moving will get sliced.

Here is the offending part of the Ford Expedition:

For contrast, here is what the doors look like on the vehicles I typically drive.

As you can see, the door does have a corner but the corner is in the same plane as the rest of the door edge, so it’s not going to catch your leg as you’re standing next to it. Maybe if you angle your leg under the door, but that’s not normal.

What happens is that the part of the door that deviates from the vertical ends up sticking out as the door moves, so anything right next to the door edge will be fine when the door edge goes by, but then it will be caught by the protrusion. Here’s a diagram that shows it.

No one else in my family – or in the family that owns the vehicle – got their leg scraped. I must be the most impatient one of the bunch, closing the door before I’ve moved far enough away from it. Ah well, I still say it’s a poor design, and if I actually owned the vehicle I would be modifying those corners somehow.