My pet peeve used to be people who fling out their doors in parking lots, hitting the cars beside them. Now I just sit there and laugh. My jeep has steel rock sliders along the sides
(or 'steps' as we call them because I bought them when my wife thought the jeep needed "steps" to get into it better. heh heh Wife authorized upgrade...)
Let's see they are called running boards when they are solid, Nerf bars when the steel tubes were first brought in and now they are "side step bars" when looking through brochures as the open design took over the market place, gotta love evolution.