Some vehicles with sliding doors, such as minivans, currently provide windows that raise and lower on the sliding doors. This presents a potential danger to occupants, however, in the event that a sliding door, with its window open, is opened while a part of an occupant's body (eg. their head or arm) extends out through the open window aperture. As the door slides back along the vehicle body, the part of the occupant's body can get trapped between the sliding door window frame and the rear edge of the door aperture on the vehicle body. In order to avoid such a scenario, devices have been proposed that prevent the sliding door from opening beyond a certain point if its window is open more than a selected amount. Such devices include sensing devices which sense whether the sliding door window is open more than a selected amount. These sensing devices are sometimes undesirably loud, however, and suffer from operating problems when their constituent components freeze together in cold climates.
It would be advantageous to provide a sensing device for detecting whether the sliding door window is open beyond a selected amount, which operates relatively quietly and which is relatively less prone to problems in the event that the components are frozen together.