Does the door close button in your elevator actually work? In Trapped In An Elevator, one expert said the button was a sham. But after viewers wrote to us disputing that, we decided to run a little citizen science experiment. Dozens of our blog readers and Facebook fans chipped in by putting their favorite elevators to the test, using stopwatches to time the elevator doors with and without a press of the door close button. (Catch up with Part I of this series.)



Here's our own contribution to the debate. Take a look.





So, is the button a total fake? Not necessarily. First, based on reports from our readers, some elevators really do have working door close buttons. Plus, we didn't consider every possible scenario in which a rider might press the button. What if she'd been holding the door open button for a while before pressing the door close? What if a stream of passengers had entered the elevator? What if she'd sent the elevator up to a new floor? What if the elevator was operating in a manual or emergency mode? We only tested one particular scenario in one particular elevator.

