diphthong

Thank goodness the doors of 60's/70's cadillacs and lincolns are a thing of the past. otherwise, we'd all be worse off. automobiles...dangerous-even when parked.

Rick

In the USA when someone is doored the offending driver is unlikely to even receive a ticket. So instead of accommodating the mind numbed idiots who create poorly designed bicycle infrastructure, just stay out of the door zone.

Troul 

factor in those states with "no-fault" ... ughhh.

Alan K

Perhaps bicyclists should start campaigning to mandate doors like Tesla X doors in every cars.

Alan K

Not as bad as the rear doors on a Rolls.
[But they still call their roads carriage ways.]

Troul 

just outfit vehicles with lambo doors. Every late model minivan & crossover will become 90's cool. #respekt

adablduya

in my opinion, getting doored is totally avoidable. it would suck, sure, but if one crashes into an opened/opening door, that's on him/her.

Leisesturm

Actually, being doored to death is NOT a fear of mine. I'm pretty sure that it ranks low on a lot of cyclists worries. I missed this thread the first time. Thanks to the re-boot, I get to ask you why you believe a situation of as low occurrence of [fatal] dooring requires any technical solution? MILLIONS of cyclists navigate, without incident, the treacherous traveling that is a bicyclists lot, in cities large and small.

I'm one of them, and I have few enough bike commuting years ahead that if, the solution to the 'nightmare' is to simply remove bicycles from the transportation paradigm, I'm ok with that. On street parking will never be eliminated in East Coast and MidWest old growth population centers, and it is a bridge too far to imagine any further widening of existing roadways elsewhere, to include buffer zones around parked cars. Cyclists have got to look out for their own interests (most already do) and ride aware and defensively.

I.B.Roots

RIP

The Dutch Reach seems to be a good idea or a cyclist can move to rural America....not many (if any) parked cars! Also, Oregon has some thoughtfully spacious bike lanes in towns I've ridden through.

SoCaled 

Almost every time I ride the bike lanes in my town I get an "invitation" to be doored. Comes in a couple of different versions. Most common is person comes out of house or business to their parked car, parallel to traffic and inside bike lane, they look in the direction of traffic as they step into the bike lane or sometimes even before, they see a line of cars coming and make eye contact with me coming at them as they stand in the bike lane you would think this would be the moment they would pause? Naw, they then go ahead and swing their door open completely, blocking my path with my option now being swerve into traffic?, run them down/door myself? or get stopped very quickly. Version two is more impressive, I keep an eye on parked cars when in the bike lane, expecting them to do the unexpected (pull out, swing open door, etc). I regularly see folks who have parked, check their drivers side mirror before opening their door, can't count the number of those folks I have made eye contact with before they then proceeded to open their door right in front of me.
I have one guy who always notices me coming, and has numerous times opened his door after I rode by or waited to step into the bike lane until I rode by or pulled his trash cans out of the bike lane when he saw me coming, he is quickly becoming my favorite neighbor

urbanknight

In California, bike lanes are compulsory. That puts cyclists in between a rock and a hard place having to decide to risk their safety or break the law (and I know people who got bike lane tickets). Personally, I ride on the far side of the bike lane so I'm likely to miss opening doors or at least just have to swerve a few inches. The flip side to that is vehicles in the next lane over sometimes pass fairly closely (sometimes even honk or yell) because they think I'm being an entitled jerk by riding on the outside and not up against the parked cars.

urbanknight

I have noticed what seems to be an increasing number of people who look but don't care and step into traffic anyway. That's not just when I'm riding either. They look and step out in front of my 2-ton car!
Your favorite neighbor is probably a cyclist.

Rick

​​​​​​​

Leisesturm

And would you want it any other way?

Rick

This means you absolutely do not need to ride in the door zone.

Leisesturm

Ah, I see. So that's where we must part company on the spirit of the law interpretations. But, you do you. I belong to a subset demographic that never comes off well trying to explain nuances of legal interpretation to LEO when confronted.

spclark 

That's why lawyers exist! Folks like that know that if you as much as even come close to grazing them they can sue you for every last penny you will ever earn.

urbanknight

While you could argue that you are allowed to stay out of a bike lane to avoid a hazard (door zone), cops and judges might disagree and you will be fined anyway.

That's why I ride with cameras. Of course I will slow, stop, or change lanes as is practical to avoid hitting them, but if they suddenly jump out with no time to spare, my footage will (hopefully) show who's fault it was.

Kontact 

If you were riding at a brisk pace and a pedestrian stepped out from between two parked vehicles and you struck and killed him, not many people would be talking about how the cyclist isn't at fault.

Don't ride that close to stuff that can jump out at you. Parked vehicles hide doors, hide pedestrians, hide pets, hide wild animals and hide entering vehicles. Don't ride close to parked vehicles.

That's what we should advocate for, not punishing someone that did the obvious thing and got out of the car.

Leisesturm

There's no excuse for this kind of obtuseness this late in the thread. You must know that people door cars too. Many a State Trooper has been hit (and killed) exiting their vehicle. Cyclists don't usually possess enough mass x velocity to routinely kill careless individuals that wander into their path, but occasionally the stars align and what might otherwise have been a mishap, turns into a tragedy.

If the alternative was to have all streets become de facto 'sharrows' then it would already have happened. But, at least where I live, all streets are NOT sharrows. If you as a cyclist think you can cruise in the vehicle lane like one of the cars or motorcycles then you better be prepared to hold 25mph with relative ease and be prepared to increase that to 35 or more to catch that stale green. Woe be unto you if you manage to slide through and leave the mouthbreather that was on your six moments earlier. He will catch you. Film at 11. I have observed that there is plenty of common sense to go around IRL. It's only in forums that people act like brains are exclusive to an individual. I do not WANT the right to ride with cars to avoid pets that might enter the bike lane! I do not have unit body construction, and if I am caught in between two cars that rear end each other, I am ... yeah, so, no. You can have "The Lane". I don't need it.

urbanknight

Not sure if you missed my earlier post, but it's obviously not as simple as you make it seem.

Kontact 

I live and commute in Seattle, a town with a tremendous amount of traffic and a mix of bike lanes. Sometimes I take the lane, and watch the cars coming up behind me. Sometimes I use the bike lane and stay well away from the inside of it if there are cars parked. If there are cars behind me, I swerve in to allow them to pass whenever there is a gap in the parked cars - which there are plenty of. And while there are many sharrows here, by law a cyclist is a vehicle and I'm not going to get a ticket for riding on any street - not that drivers seem to think that sharrows have a magic power anyway.

And, I don't do most of my riding on busy boulevards, because there is almost always a residential side street running parallel.


I can't speak for everyone - I've only lived and biked in seven big metro areas, including Chicago. But I do observe that some cyclists seem to think their options for riding on streets are strangely restricted - as if they ride in a video game version of reality where every road is lined with parked cars, has only one traffic lane, and goes on forever. Or that the consequences of blowing stop signs in a residential neighborhood are unthinkable. Or that cyclists are duty bound to "be predictable" and only ride one line so as to not frighten the drivers (from studies, these folks make drivers more complacent).


There is no place on a road that you are safe from someone driving out of their lane because they are texting. People drive into houses sometimes. But passing motorists are generally less likely to hit something right in front of them then someone who is sitting in their car daydreaming is to check their blind spot before opening the door, so I tend to stay away from them.

work4bike

I noticed about 10 - 12 years ago that all the States started re-writing their bike laws and from the few I've looked at over they years, they all seemed to make them roughly the same/uniform.

I've heard that California cyclists were required to stay in the bike lane, come hell or high water. However, after checking into it, that does not seem to be the case. It is primarily on the cyclist to stay clear of door zones.

If this is out-dated law, I'd love to see a law that requires a cyclists to stay in a bike lane, period.


https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/f...8.&lawCode=VEH

urbanknight

I get what you're saying and agree with it for the most part, but I'm saying that "don't ride close to parked vehicles" isn't exactly as simple as it sounds when you're required to ride in a bike lane that keeps you within 3' of the parked cars. As I mentioned before, you could make a case for the door zone being a "hazard", but not everybody is willing to agree.

That's the law as I understand it. The problem is "hazardous conditions" is up to interpretation. As I mentioned before, some cops/judges/aggressive drivers don't feel that a door zone qualifies.

urbanknight

Interestingly enough, I just looked up the bike lane width requirement in CA, and it's 5' (not 4' as I had thought). Many of the bike lanes where I live don't meet that, although once again good luck getting drivers and government officials to recognize that.