You know that “Close Door” button in an elevator?- Yah- it doesn’t work!

Have you ever been standing in an elevator and start hammering the “door close” button?  It turns out the “door close” button doesn’t actually do anything, according to the director of the National Elevator Industry trade group.

Those buttons used to work.  But after the Americans With Disabilities Act in 1990, the elevator manufacturers had to disable them to make sure there was enough time for someone in a wheelchair or with a cane to safely make it into an elevator.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Td3aZ5pZgoQ

So why do they still put them in there?  There are two reasons.  One, they’re there out of tradition, even though they don’t do anything anymore.

And two, people still really like pressing them, because it gives us a sense of control.