Dooring is a traffic collision in which a cyclist rides into a car door or is struck by a car door that was opened quickly without checking the side mirror for cyclists. The width of the door zone in which this can happen varies, depending upon the model of car one is passing. The zone can be almost zero for a vehicle with gull-wing doors or much larger for a truck. Dooring can happen when a driver has parked and is exiting their vehicle, or when passengers are exiting from cars, taxis and ride shares into the path of an oncoming bicyclist.
Video Dooring
Legal issues
Many countries are aligned with the Vienna convention which states: «It shall be prohibited to open the door of a vehicle, to leave it open, or to alight from the vehicle without having made sure that to do so cannot endanger other road-users.» (Article 24 -- Opening of doors).
Most areas have laws that require car users to check for cyclists before opening the door of their vehicle, but there have been serious injuries and deaths caused by drivers illegally opening their doors in the path of a passing cyclist where this is prohibited by law.
Many areas have laws may be interpreted as requiring cyclists to ride in the door zone, meaning they may expose themselves to danger in order to keep out of the way of motorized traffic. These laws typically have exceptions; avoiding hazards, such as an open door, is sometimes among them.
The problem lies with avoiding this 5 feet (1.5 m) zone, which should be part of the parking zone, when there is a bike lane or the perception by law enforcement or motorists that one should be riding their bike out of the travel lane to not impede faster motorized traffic. In most jurisdictions, a cyclist is considered a driver/operator of a vehicle afforded the same rights as the driver of a motor vehicle; however, in some jurisdictions cyclists are further restricted by laws such as "ride as far right as practicable." From a cyclist's point of view, "practicable" includes safety, and safety is noted in many of these laws through exceptions; however, many law enforcement, judges, motoring public and even cyclists stop reading at "as far right." Most motor travel lanes adjacent to a bike lane are only 10-11 feet (3.0-3.4 m) wide, so if a cyclist has to use that lane to avoid hazards in the bike lane, it is too narrow to safely share with passing traffic and he/she should ride in a "lane-control" method as is allowed by most of these ordinances.
Maps Dooring
Avoidance
Education
Because it is rarely possible to see and react safely to a suddenly opening door, traffic cycling educational programs teach cyclists to ride in the travel lane outside of the door zone.
Dutch Reach
Motorists and passengers - both front and rear - can make dooring less likely by practicing the "Dutch Reach" - opening the car door by reaching across the body with the more distant hand.
Reaching across turns one's upper body and head outward. It encourages drivers and front passengers to use the side wing mirror, look out to the side and then over one's shoulder to scan for traffic before opening. Once the door is partly opened, as one leans out one's over-the-shoulder view is now clear, no longer limited by side pillar (car) or door frame. As a further safe-guard against dooring, reaching across curbs wide, sudden opening.
Even as the maneuver is becoming known elsewhere as the "Dutch Reach", in Holland driving instructors and driving school companies refer to it by description and not by a name.
The far hand move is not literally specified by Dutch traffic code to pass the safe parking section of the road test. Rather, Dutch regulations for licensing set two standards to ensure safe exiting of vehicles to protect vulnerable road users, viz: Articles 4e and 6a. As fewer than half of applicants pass the examination on first attempt, Dutch instructors teach the far hand maneuver as most assured to demonstrate safe exiting on the road test. That said, alternative exiting measures may also suffice in modern, bicycle friendly Netherlands. But evidence for such left or near hand instruction awaits documentation.
The reach method is likely less practiced by Dutch motorists today than in the 1960s-1980s when Dutch road fatalities numbered in the thousands and prompted the Stop the Kindermoord protest movement to end the carnage. Anecdotal reports date the 'reach across' practice to that era. Since then bicycling in The Netherlands is much safer. Innovative and extensive infrastructure improvements, separate and protected cycle tracks, strict driver education and testing, popular use of bicycles for daily transport and dedication to road safety, all contributed to its dramatic decline in road injuries and fatalities.
As noted above, the far hand technique does not have a Dutch name, but in 2016 an American physician in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA, coined the term to promote the Dutch method which was little known in the United States. The "Dutch Reach" coinage reflects that the method was common to The Netherlands before being 'imported' to the U.S. It was described as a Dutch road safety measure in the American mainstream press in 2011 by the New York Times and the Boston Globe in 2013
The method can be traced beyond northern Europe starting in the 2010s. From 2011 to 2016 several bicycle advocacy organizations and road safety agencies in the United States, Canada and Australia added advisories or launched anti-dooring campaigns which included or featured the far hand countermeasure. In New Haven, CT it was variously called the "Amsterdam", "European cities'" or "reach-across" method (2013). In Fort Collins, CO it became the "Opposite Hand Trick" (2014). However the tip remained nameless in San Francisco, CA (2015); Montreal (2014), and Vancouver (2016), Canada; New Zealand (2015); and Victoria, Australia (2012). In Australia two slogans have emerged to prompt the habit: "Lead with your left" [origin uncertain]; and "Always Cross Check", devised by a road safety organization.
Considerable international interest in the term and method followed its coinage, suggesting that the far hand method was or remained little known across the globe. Press, electronic media and internet news coverage about the Dutch Reach method have since occurred in Canada, United Kingdom, Austria, Australia, Belgium, Brazil, China, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hong Kong, Hungary, India, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Korea, Poland, New Zealand, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan,, The Netherlands, and the United States of America.
In early 2017 the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (UK) endorsed the Dutch Reach as the recommended road safety practice to avoid dooring collisions. In May 2017 the Commonwealth of Massachusetts (USA) introduced the Dutch Reach far hand method into its 2017 Revised Driver's Manual, Chapter 4, Rules of the Road, as best practice for safe exiting of vehicles. Immediately thereafter the League of American Bicyclists called for its adoption nationally, in addition to safe infrastructure improvements and cyclist vigilance and door zone avoidance. Other governments are now adding the 'reach' to driver's manuals and education, taxi and for-hire ridesharing regulations, and road safety campaigns. Examples include: State of Illinois; South Australia; Washington D.C.; City of London Corporation; Berlin, Germany; and Burbank, CA
To date, it appears that the scientific safety literature is silent on the relative merits or flaws of near hand versus far hand egress from vehicles. However a paper submitted for the 7th International Cycling Safety Conference in 2018, suggests one such study may be forthcoming.
Automated systems
At least one auto-parts supplier has developed an automatic detection system to prevent or warn the user before opening the car door if a bicycle is approaching..
Prevalence
It is difficult to find statistics on the incidence of door zone fatalities, serious injuries, and collisions as the type of accident is often not recorded consistently from city to city. However, an analysis of Chicago bike crashes found that there were 344 reported dooring crashes reported in 2011, for a rate of 0.94 doorings per day. Doorings made up 19.7% of all reported bike crashes. The number of additional doorings that occurred without being reported is unknown.
Collisions
In Toronto, "motorist opens door in path of cyclist" collisions were 11.9% of all reported car/bike collisions in 2003. Eight percent of serious injuries to cyclists in London in 2007 were caused by cyclists swerving to avoid opening car doors. In the Australian state of Victoria between 2006 and 2010, car door openings caused eight percent of serious injuries to cyclists.
Relative risk
Relative to other collisions such as getting rear ended, getting doored is less risky: "80.04% of those cyclists who were doored were injured, while 94.40% of those in non-dooring crashes were injured." Also, it should be noted that getting doored itself usually is not fatal; rather, most serious door-zone-related injuries are sustained by getting hit by a motor vehicle while swerving to avoid the door. Thus, most deaths and serious injuries occur in the travel lane and not in the door zone.
Fatalities
In New York City, 3% (7 out of 225) of bicyclist fatalities in the ten-year period between 1996 and 2005 were from striking an open door or swerving to avoid one. In London three people were killed in car door opening incidents between 2010 and 2012. In two peer reviewed studies, 124 deaths in London during 1985-1992, and 142 deaths in New Zealand during 1973-1978, none of the fatalities occurred in door opening incidents. While there were 1112 collisions caused by opening doors in the Australian state of Victoria between 2000 and 2010, the first fatality occurred in March 2010.
Bike lanes and door zone incidents
In a comparison of Santa Barbara (without bike lanes) to Davis, California (with bike lanes), 8% of the car-bike collisions in Santa Barbara involved an opening door, whereas Davis had none.
See also
- Outline of cycling
- Cycling infrastructure
- Shared lane marking
References
External links
- The "Door Zone" includes instructive diagrams.
- The Door Zone Project
- Door Zone Avoidance Preston Tyree, recently retired Education Director at League of American Bicyclists, teaching LCI (instructor) candidates how to teach about the door zone.
- Why You Should Avoid the Door Zone Video showing how bicyclists are thrown into traffic when they collide with an opening car door.
- The Dutch Reach Project A project and website to promote the far-hand 'Dutch Reach' method to avoid crashes, dooring cyclists or personal injury to occupants when exiting motor vehicles.
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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