That's a good point, WVGasGuy. I knew there had to be a good reason they did it that way from the factory. I'm going to be driving the car with a few passengers each day, however, and that's what was so annoying about the way it was before I reset it. Thanks for clueing me in, though, as I feel totally ignorant for not figuring that one out for myself.

 

If one is concerned about opening one door only for safety reasons, besides keeping the smartkey at its default setting, one could simply press the unlock button on the key fob one time. It will override the all doors unlocking via smartkey and only unlock the driver's door.

 

one could simply press the unlock button on the key fob one time. It will override the all doors unlocking via smartkey and only unlock the driver's door.

True. I'm no expert on this as I live in a fairly safe rural setting, but from TV (reality?) it appears that people do get stalked, do get abducted or do get assulted and possibly they don't have the time to dig their key out of thier purse when someone strange or suspicious appears about the time they are close to their car.

 

That sort of defeats the whole purpose of "Smart Entry".
I can envision a person running for her/his car to escape a mugger and having to fumble for a key fob in their purse/pocket just so ALL the doors don't open.
I have to believe that Toyota engineers pondered a long time before they defined the default actions and I have to believe security was high on their list.
I'm leaving mine at factory defaults which opens only the driver'd door.
FWIW if you open the 'passenger' door via Smart Entry, ALL the doors open by default. A subtley which may not be obvious.
J

 

MagCamyH, how do you change the fob to open all doors when the driver opens the driver's door?

 

It depends on where you live I suppose. I have NEVER in 28 years of living here heard of ANYONE being attacked in the way you describe. If it was a problem, I'd move somewhere safer.

I don't mind that the default is "driver's door only" but I don't think a blanket admonishment to not change it is warranted.

 

Vermont is probably a lot safer than most states or you don't watch the news. I'm guessing these things happen in Vermont as well.

Even here in rural WV last year an employee of mine had his wife approached by a guy with a knife in the WalMart parking lot trying to force her into the truck she was driving. I know of at least three incidents over my last 20 years of people being attacked while getting into their car.

 

If I recall correctly, with key fob in hand, stand within 3 feet of drivers door and press the UNLOCK and LOCK buttons simultaneously and hold them down. I believe after a number of seconds the car will beep a few times in rapid sequence to let you know it confirmed the setting change.

 

Yes we have robberies and murder, same as every other place on earth. But I've not heard the scenario you described as a common occurance: The attacker getting into the car from the passenger side when the attackee (??) gets in on the driver's side.
It wouldn't matter if she had a fob set to unlock 1 or all doors or had a car that needed a metal key. The guy had a knife and was trying to force her into her car.

COULD a hidden attacker try to get in the passenger side? SURE! Does it happen? I'm sure it does. But your own anecdote suggests 'all or 1' isn't going to make a difference a lot of the time. If you live in or travel to areas where your scenario is a known 'MO', the more you do to protect yourself the better, including 'driver side only' unlocking. I imagine that if one has reason to be concerned, it would be best to have the fob in hand, finger at the ready over the panic button. Give the attacker a reason to leave before the car is unlocked at all.

 

First off, my sympathies go out to those you know who've been attacked. I'll wager if it was really looked at in earnest, in none of those cases did the fact that one or all doors unlocked upon entry would have come into play. Being held at knifepoint is typically a close proximity situation and doesn't happen from the opposite side of a vehicle.

I would submit that the woman held at knifepoint was probably 'caught' well before to entering within 3 feet of her driver's door, and my guess was to hold her at knifepoint meant the bad guy was not on the opposite side of the car, where all doors unlocking would have helped him gain access to it, but rather on the same side of the vehicle with her, and therefore since smart entry unlocks the driver's side door anyway she wouldn't have been able to escape into the vehicle and lock the door quickly enough to be out of jeopardy.

I live in Phoenix, with the serial snipers and the baseline rapist and have been out here the majority of my life. It's a town of 3.3 million people and it has it's proportionate amount of crime. If I were worried that my wife would get into such a close scrape that this door locking system came into play, I'd want her to get some awareness training, to expand the buffer between when a dangerous situation began to develop and when she decided it was time to get the heck out of there.

Even if an evildoer is on the opposite side of the vehicle, consider that it takes a fraction of a second to 'Starsky and Hutch' over the hood and be right in their prey's back pocket.

I've dated women who, when in a parking lot or in their vehicle driving were completely oblivious to the world around them...actually I've known quite a few who were like this...(NOT SAYING ALL WOMEN ARE LIKE THIS !! ) and I reinforce to them that awareness is the key to safety. Only in the most rare circumstances does a bad guy 'come out of nowhere'. His body occupied some physical space just prior to standing next to you, and in many cases an aware person could have taken steps to avoid the problem, or mitigate its results.

I hope this post was taken in the spirit given, simply to spark thought. I think each owner of course has his or her own right to decide the settings of how his or her vehicle locks or unlocks and we each have different levels of tolerance, and different wants and needs safetywise.