Miele Man

I remember that thread well and posted in it a few times that a licensed truck driver would not have been able to avoid running over that bicyclists since the bicyclist was essentially catapulted under the truck's wheels when the bicycle was struck by the opening door. It's a fantastic example of why not to ride in a door zone even at slow speed.

On You Tube there are videos showing jut how far away from a car you need to be to avoid being hit by an opening door. It's quite a distance and more so if the car is a two door because the doors are longer than a four door. Trucks, pickup or others, often have bigger doors.

Cheers

bobwysiwyg

You must have missed my reference to "unavoidable. "
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Miele Man

No, I saw that. I've seen people on bicycle gets doored and the result of getting doored is not pretty. Therefore I don't ride in any door zone. My outlook is that it's possible to avoid riding in the door zone. For me it is NOT unavoidable to ride in a door zone. Why some people persist in riding in the door zone is beyond me. I also don't understand why so many so called bicycle lanes are painted/created that put bicyclists in the door zone.

Ride in the door zone if you like but know that it's very risky thing to do.

Edit. Here are a couple of videos that show just how far from a car door a bicyclist needs to be to be safe from an opening door. Start at the 1:25 point of this video.


About the 1:00 point in this video.


Cheers

bobwysiwyg

I guess there's no reconciling your fear and my caution. So be it.

Miele Man

It's not fear my friend. It's avoiding a potentially very dangerous situation. I call it being prudent not to ride in a door zone.

Cheers

xroadcharlie

I'm with Miele Man on this one.

The problem with the door zone is unlike most cycling where a little courtesy and defensive riding can go a long way to reduce the risk of accidents for cyclists, Riding in the door zone is a crap shoot. It's not a matter of if, It's a matter of when if you ride there frequently. That's why I either avoid a busy narrow route with parked cars even if it adds a few minutes to my ride, Or stay far out of the door zone. If we can't do either, SLOW DOWN.

That anti-dooring feature is great for the owner of the car, But the tiny percentage of cars that might have it in 5 - 10 years does little for us cyclist.

As for those bike/door zone lanes with parked cars may actually be worse then no markings at all as it implies a false sense of security.

Leisesturm

Maybe worrywart cyclists should worry less about the door zone because it really isn't doing them any good. American cyclist metrics for negative interactions with motor vehicles are the worst in the developed world. All this fear, all this helmet adoption, all this obsession with lights and horns and and ... what? Why don't we have the best safety metrics? Maybe you should listen to us gutter hugging, door zone bike lane adopting, Idaho stopping, rational cyclists ...

Clyde1820

Will be a nice feature once they work out all the kinks.

Ought to be capable of having 180-degree visible turn signals mounted to the side-view mirror assemblies, radar/lidar sensors to know when fast-approaching vehicles or others are in the "danger zone," and ought to be able to loudly and clearly inform a driver/passenger that there's an apparent extreme risks of opening the door right then. Won't be perfect, probably, but it's better than the "wing-it" method most folks employ now.

My own car's about ten years old, and on the sides it's only got the proximity warning lights (for the driver) associated with the side-view mirrors (blind spot monitoring). No turn-signal lighting on the mirrors, and certainly no rear-facing blind spot monitoring as would be necessary for a bike lane. Hopefully it'll come, at some point.

Leisesturm

What if it came in the next two years? Would you sell your now 12 year old car at a loss to buy into a model fully up to date with cyclist awareness technology? You might. You might well be able to. Others, not so much. I mean, you have to know that the Middle Class is taking quite an economic beating these days. In some states half the civilian fleet is below mid-90's evolution let alone anything more advanced. When will cyclists stop obsessing about minutiae of road safety like whether flashers strobe or are steady, door zone vs take the lane, MIPS helmet tech vs CSPS rated ... a tiny fraction of Americans own bicycles. An even tinier fraction ride them regularly in traffic where they are vulnerable to collisions with motor vehicles. Even so America leads the developed world in the number of cyclists involved negatively with motor traffic. I don't know, given all the evidence, I'm not convinced that a critical mass of drivers are going to rush out and buy new cars because they have self locking doors that prevent dooring incidents. I admit a bias.

Clyde1820

No, probably not.

But the nice thing is, as such capabilities get put into puny chips and made ubiquitous, it'll be hard to get away from such things in a few years. Most (if not all) "basic" new cars might well be coming with such stuff integrated into the "base" package. Personal vehicles might well become all but unobtainable for the average person, other than on the pre-owned market. But, still. Nice features. IMO, it won't be too long before most makers are putting such stuff into most models.

Rollfast

Now if they'd make the rest of the door safe...

Paul Barnard

That tech will never save my hide.