'Dutch reach' rule change to Highway Code welcomed
bbc.com
bbc.com
When I ride my bike, I always try to stay out of the door zone, but sometimes I'm forced over by oncoming traffic in a tight street. Many streets just aren't wide enough to stay a safe distance away from oncoming traffic and also stay out of reach of doors.
(Bicycles are smaller than cars, but cars can safely pass much closer to other cars because the risk is lower — some paint and body work versus possible serious injury. Cars typically slow way down when encountering oncoming cars in a tight street, too, making it safer to get close, but they don't do that as often for cyclists. A final factor is that I think subconsciously drivers don't see the door zone as a dangerous place for cyclists, so they think they're giving you more space than they really are. All these factors mean that a street that feels narrow when I'm driving feels just as narrow and tricky, sometimes even more so, when I'm on my bike.)
EDIT: Another final thing that makes staying out of the door zone tricky is when there's parking right next to the bike lane! This seems like an utterly brainless design, maybe it's necessary in some places for reasons I don't understand, but it's horrible and the very existence of the bike lane makes drivers aggressive towards cyclists who aren't in it. I just avoid those streets, but when I can't, I ride in the bike lane and hope not to get doored.
If you were in a car, what would you do?
I admit that it's unlikely that a car driver coming toward you is going to flash you to come forward when they think "there's plenty of space", however you can slow right down and check the parked car occupants to see if they are there.
A bigger problem is taxi drivers letting out passengers without checking for traffic, as shown here.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zI0dPGuP2zE
(of course the anti-cyclist brigage will complain that he should have been dressed in high viz and wearing a helmet /s)
The biggest thing I do is simply slow down — most of the problems come from people in a hurry to spend more time waiting at the next intersection bit of traffic. Speeding exacerbates problems with many drivers not having an accurate understanding of the size of their vehicles — thinking they have enough room to maintain high speed by staying in the middle of the road, crowding the cyclist because they want to leave 5 feet of space on the side at risk of being damaged by another car, etc.
I must admit I do laugh and wave when they do that only to end up sitting behind an illegally double-parked UPS truck which a bicyclist has room to pass.
(As a kid I was ticketed while on rollerblades for speeding in a 15kph zone. In many jurisdictions the rules apply to everyone.)
I've never met a cyclist that doesn't slow, look both ways, etc, at city intersections. This demand that we come to a complete stop every 30 seconds while navigating dangerous city roads could only come from those who do not use this vastly safer and greener form of transportation.
Nor does my motorcycle, which is narrower than many of the bicycle+cart/recumbent bike combinations I see these days. And my car weighs far less than "many tons", less than two in fact.
> This demand that we come to a complete stop every 30 seconds
Maybe for pushbikes. But "bicycle" now includes all the electric bikes that, imho, are getting close to motorcycles in terms of speed (ie they can maintain the speed limit). Stopping every thirty seconds is just the price of using the road. If you don't want to stop then lobby for and use separate bicycle paths away from the street.
But to your anecdote, it's not altogether surprising that someone driving an illegal motorcycle is also willing to break traffic laws.</strike>
My mistake, I misread 45 as 45mph. I agree that anyone riding like you describe is breaking the law and should be ticketed/fined. (Personally I would not consider a fat bike that can be throttled up to 28mph to be a "bicycle" in any meaningful sense of the word, but I acknowledge that is a semantic battle that has already been lost.)
(Though I am curious where you are that has a 28mph ebike limit but that uses kph measurements.)
Just 2 days ago I had to swerve to avoid a cyclist who came into an intersection without slowing down against a traffic light, with a phone held to her ear with one hand, and only one hand on the handlebars.
That brings me to the second flaw: you have to compare the risks to others — that is, after all, why we care in the first place. A bicyclist, even on an e-bike, is much, much, much safer than someone driving a car for many reasons:
1. they're accelerating slower to a lower maximum speed
2. they're exceedingly unlikely to be distracted by a phone or entertainment system
3. they have far less kinetic energy because the combined weight is a tiny fraction of a car or especially the massive SUVs and trucks which have become endemic
4. they need far less distance to stop
5. they aren't insulated from their surroundings with metal and glass (no blind spots) and not having engine noise or a sound system means they can hear other people, too
6. they have better steering
7. they need need far less space, which means that it's far more likely that they can avoid a collision, especially combined with the previous points making them more likely to notice in time to react.
Put all of that together and you are left comparing people driving cars, who kill the equivalent of a medium-sized city and severely injure an order of magnitude more people every year, to bicyclists causing a tiny fraction of those injuries. While it certainly makes sense to build infrastructure which improves the safety, it's nonsensical to ignore the cause of almost all of the roadway deaths
That does not match my experience. Drivers in my area go 5, 10, and even 15mph over the legal limit with seemingly no repercussions[1], even in school zones. And yet excess speed is a contributing factor in many of the road deaths here.
(Whereas drivers or cyclists "rolling through" stop signs at ~4mph when no one is waiting don't seem to be nearly as deadly so I'm less concerned about that.)
We are in agreement that there is a culture of lawlessness on many roads and that better traffic enforcement is sorely needed. But personally I would begin by enforcing those laws that will save the most lives.
[1] The exception being US military bases. An MP can and will pull you over for going 1mph over the limit on a downhill. And your CO may be informed. I've never seen such well-behaved drivers! It makes military bases one of the safest places to drive/bike/run/walk.
I have a 4 year old, so that's my metric as well: how often do I have to help him not get seriously injured? The answer is multiple times a day with cars and maybe once in his lifetime for everything else.
There was a Muni Metro light rail train (eastbound) stopped at the red light with passengers disembarking onto the narrow island, there are no cars in the lane between the island and the sidewalk so folks are crossing the street after leaving the bus.
Young (20's) guy on his bike comes zooming down the hill (from the West), sails through the people crossing the street and through the red light (blind, because of the train and the slope of Victoria st.) He's got both hands off the handlebars, holding his phone, texting or whatever, his eyes are on the phone not on the road, he's got headphones in, and the icing on the disaster cake: no helmet.
"Life's pretty cheap with that sort."
Someone on a bike (or skates or...) is slower and has better use of their hearing and is less deadly to others, but has to work harder to get going again from a dead stop.
Cyclists and cars have different "superpowers", like how bikes can share a footpath with pedestrians and cars get to go 80mph down a freeway. It's reasonable.
I personally wouldn't filter up the left of traffic in a place like London because of the danger of the Grayling situation (or left turning lorries with no signals etc), but it's not illegal.
That video, whoof, there is just no space there. It seems like an inherently dangerous place to be. There's no bike lane, so it's just overtaking cars in the same lane, which I don't feel safe doing. Filtering is not common in the U.S. (in most places it's illegal, at least for motorcycles and scooters) so I don't feel safe doing it; people don't expect it so they don't watch out for it. I don't know the traffic conventions in London.
If I had to ride on a street like that in the U.S., I'd probably stay in the center of the lane and stop behind the stopped cars like the other traffic is doing. Sometimes I just accept that traffic is slow or blocked. That's just me, though. I get crazy looks from other cyclists when I stop in traffic because the cars in front of me are stopped.
Cars have airbags, cyclists and pedestrians don't. On such routes, I drive prepared to slow down/stop or evade into oncoming traffic.
I don’t think you always can. At some distance, the view through the car’s rear window can be obscured by another parked car. At closer distance, because your eyes are higher up than a car driver, the car’s roof can be in the way.
Finally, slowing down a lot to get a good view can make you swerve. That adds risk. In general, the view from a bicycle is better than that from a car, but not for looking into other cars.
(I’m talking _car_ here, not the monstrosities common in the USA)
Thanks for your comment, it's highlighted to me a shortcoming of my driving that I'd never properly considered - and I don't expect I'm alone. I've watched lots of YouTube videos by driving instructors looking at footage of their students and compilations of dashcams and haven't once seen such a simple and obvious thing highlighted, which is probably a little worrying.
The Dutch government actually issues a message earlier this week (probably in response to what the UK is doing) with the updated guidance.
Apparently, it's not that safe in some recent cars due to the position of the door handle. So it no longer is something that is checked during driving exams anymore. Nor is it required to be teaching it during driving lessons. And the guidance is to simply pay attention.
My full technique also involves popping the door only a few inches and allowing it to sit that way for a couple seconds, then opening it slowly, just to be doubly cautious.
But as I’ve said, if everyone just uses their mirrors it’s unnecessary because you will know there are no cyclists coming.
Another point that is missed is why don’t cyclists ride in the middle of the street and/or slow down a bit. It is always astonishing to me how entitled and utterly recklessly cyclists ride around as if the supposed rights they have are some kind of divine protection. You’re the squishy human that has nothing protecting it, rider like it may kill your, because it can.
And did anyone else notice not a single person was wearing a helmet in the video? I’m not one to force people to wear helmets, but there again is that weird entitlement of cyclists. So now people have to do some convoluted reach because cyclists race past car doors without a helmet on. Have you ever seen cyclists in Dutch cities, they are simply stupid risk takers.
The obligation is on the party obstructing the traffic flow to not be a dick about it (which includes broadcasting their intentions to some extent) and the secondary obligation is on the moving traffic to not do ludicrous speed so that the former party can accurately predict whether or not they can make their move without being a dick about it.
> Given space they might stop, which is pretty discourteous by the person opening the door
Precisely the opposite is true: thoughtfully opening one's door slowly as a backup mechanism in an effort to prevent someone else's injury is very courteous. As a cyclist myself, I'd far prefer to be inconvenienced by an unscheduled stop than I would crash into a car door.
> with insufficient time they might well swerve into a traffic to avoid the collision, which could be far worse.
The alternative in your scenario is the driver impatiently swinging their door open. In this case the cyclist might well serve into traffic, too. Your argument makes no sense to me.
All of this is easier in Dutch cities with bike lanes and because we cycle much slower than the typical "rider" in San Francisco or London I've seen. Mostly because people commute on old slow bicycles in normal clothes instead of light weight geared bikes and full on sports outfits with helmets.
That's a fantastic term, "squishy traffic". In the U.S. we often use the term "Vulnerable users", but "squishy traffic" is so much better and so much more memorable.
That is a reasonable question. If you truly want to know why cyclists generally don't ride slowly in the middle of the street you could always try doing it yourself.
> Have you ever seen cyclists in Dutch cities, they are simply stupid risk takers.
This is unsupported by the evidence of lower cyclist fatality rates in the Netherlands compared to the US. There is even some evidence that areas that have enacted mandatory helmet laws end up increasing the fatality rate per trip. (Primarily because the number of people riding bikes drops significantly and possibly because cars leave less buffer space to people wearing helmets.)
In this case it's for a good cause.
In most cases it's of dubious merit. Anyway, "make people believe something is this way so as to normalize it and have them change behavior".
If instead proponents would say, "this is the ideal in the Netherlands, but while it's on the books virtually no one does it in practice and most only know about it through foreign media mentions" no one would pay much attention to it.
tldr; indeed not completely clear why it is called the Dutch reach
It really doesn't matter where your hand is if the intend is to be cautious to begin with.
Sometimes I fail to realize how good our infra actually is, and what it does to society.
But looking out before opening a car door is definitely a thing. Parents also tell their children to do this.
Side note: I live in Taiwan and you wouldn't believe how stupid some of the rules are here, it annoys me everyday as it's needlessly dangerous. Some red lights you can drive over, if they are flashing, I believe. And the worst for me is when pedestrian crossing is on green cars can still drive through it so you get drivers needlessly pushing to go over a green crossing even when pedestrians are crossing.
I had the exact same reaction the first time I saw this. I was a teenager at the time and remember actually slamming the hood of a turning cab with my fist on more than one occasion, before realizing that what the cabs were doing was normal and accepted behavior.
That last part, I think, is because New York pedestrian lights have a relatively long "red flashing" phase, which combined with New Yorkers being New Yorkers has the counterintuitive effect that everyone treats red flashing, and even the few seconds after, as "go ahead and start crossing."
I don't know why cars don't fit lights and reflectors as standard there. There's always power in modern doors for an LED.
At night, that extra second or two of "there's a door opening ahead" could be critical.
Only works on bikes with lights, of course. But I'm not very sympathetic to bikes without them.
Also, speaking as a cyclist, it can be surprisingly hard to see an opening car door in the dark. The side of the inside of a door is the same colour as the bodywork, so this is not as obvious as you might always expect.
It's also not only cyclists who can see this - cars with their light on will see it too, and since I'd quite like my car to continue to have a full set of doors, this is a win for me too.
Also, the car carries passengers and is not always driven by me. While obviously, I am completely perfect and am obviously physically incapable of fucking up, I cannot guarantee they will not open their doors badly, so I might as well make an effort to mitigate it in case they do.
When I was a child the UK had a lot of Pelican crossings. A Pelican consists of almost normal red/amber/green lamps for motor traffic, plus cross/don't cross indications mounted on the same poles for pedestrians, you press a button, you stare at the red "Don't cross" symbol on the far side of the road, eventually the car signals change to red (stop) then yours change to green (cross) and you can cross the road. Sometimes these are independent, sometimes they're tied into a junction and follow a light sequence for the junction (in which case pressing the button may not appear to actually make any difference, especially at peak times)
Today though it has a lot more Puffin crossings. Superficially the Puffin is similar, but the Cross/ Don't Cross indication is physically mounted on your side of the road such that to stare at it you're looking towards oncoming motor traffic (in the UK this often, but not always, means facing right). This means now your awareness of that traffic happens as a natural consequence of checking for the indication it's safe to cross. If some lunatic has ignored the lights and is racing towards you anyway there's a better chance you notice as you see it go green.
As well as Pelican, and Puffin, and the widely known Zebra, there are also Toucan ("Two can cross" = bicycles as well as pedestrians) and Pegasus (The Pegasus is a mythical winged horse, these are for horse riders) crossings but the principle of these rarer alternatives is the same as for Puffin.
E:I found this once Google understood I wasn't searching for birds or weed
https://www.tameside.gov.uk/traffic/pedestriancrossings
And
https://namiyousef96.medium.com/zebra-pelican-puffin-and-tou...
And of course Wikipedia
Like I intuitively understand what you're talking about, and have seen them, but many sites don't seem to support that definition
edit: I have found one site that describes them as you do: https://www.driving-lessons-kettering.co.uk/driving-tips/dif...
The motor vehicle light sequence is different too, a Pelican had an extra "flashing amber" step which is because it doesn't know if it's clear, so drivers can proceed if the crossing is obviously clear under flashing amber, a Puffin does not have this step.
And the timers work differently, a Pelican with a local timer (e.g. in the middle of a street not attached to a junction) I believe runs its timer when you hit the button, so a 30 second delay means 30 seconds every time you cross, whereas a Puffin has an expiring timer, if the crossing hasn't been used recently (again this won't apply as part of an integrated crossing for a junction) its timer will have run out and it will give pedestrians right of way almost immediately, the timer just prevents excessive spamming if several pedestrians cross in succession.
And of course engineers can tweak any of this for a specific application, it's just that some of this stuff is available out of the box and gets re-used. Railway signals are the same, you can buy "off the shelf" a lamp that says RA ("Right Away", a signal platform staff give) or CD ("Close Doors") but if you decide what's needed is definitely a sign that lights up "HN" then you can special order that and the makers will build it custom, you just need to train all your staff how to use it.
However something that does happen in the Netherlands is that kids get taught to pay attention and look around before opening the door of a car, no matter what hand you use. This is something my parents kept insisting over and over. Obviously only anecdotal but I expect this to be the real reason accidents like this are minimal. Combined with having a cycling culture and safer infrastructure where often the cycle lane is separated from parking spaces by some distance to make this impossible.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SylGrcN0iTI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lcTGhlstgQM
And please support traffic calming and safer design of your local streets, as well as increased access to public transit.
If this is a guideline, I would suggest that bicyclists (and e-scooters et al) also be instructed to leave distance between themselves and parked vehicles. Motorcyclists have for years been taught to avoid getting so near to parked cars for fear of being "doored". Speeding along only inches from parked cars is dangerous to everyone, especially pedestrians who may be stepping out from between cars.
The government announcement of the changes is here: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/the-highway-code-8-change...
Motorcycles should never ride as close to the edge of the road as bikes do. They're faster, bigger and more noticeable. They are given a wider berth compared to bicyclists in my experience since you can take up the middle of the lane without holding up traffic.
Riding a bike deeper into (relatively) high speed lanes is more dangerous. Impatient 4+ wheeled beings tend to drive past you putting the bike very close a lot of moving mass.
If we're teaching people in driving school a habit, the "Dutch reach" doesn't actually focus on looking to see if the way is clear. It might incidentally improve how many people look, but why be so passive about it? Just teach people to get in the habit of looking.
AFAIK this is what's actually taught in the Netherlands -- look in the side mirror, over your shoulder through the window, and only then open the door.
As for the dutch reach, I have a feeling that the most effective way to teach drivers to keep cyclists in mind before doing stupid things, is if you mandated 2 years of compulsory cycling before being allowed to drive a car.
... not that by the same logic, having suffered from tailgaters stops most people from tailgating themselves, but, you know.
This really is a case where a technological solution is superior to a behavioral solution, and this often happens in the realm of safety. E.g. instead of demanding that drivers give proper distance to cyclists, what we really need is a separate grade that enforces a proper distance. One is a poor substitute for the other, and when you are talking about safety, you want the technical solution over trusting that everyone will voluntarily always do the right thing to avoid an accident.
We have many more bikes in the Netherlands of course.
It's funny how many other things like this exist in the driving world. I remember when my parents were teaching me about "backing up", I was told to put my right arm over the back of the passenger seat. This has a similar effect to the "Dutch Reach" in that it forces your body to look completely behind you, covering blind spots in both back corners so that you can see oncoming pedestrians and bike traffic (as well as cross car traffic) on a sidewalk as you cross it.
I don't quite understand the people who need this dutch reach meme to realize that you always need to be careful opening your door into an active traffic lane rather than the hazard being incredibly obvious.
"It is already an offence to open a car door, or cause or permit it to be opened, so as to cause injury, punishable by a maximum fine of £1,000.
It is not a new law and drivers who do not use the Dutch Reach technique will not be fined, unless they commit the aforementioned existing offence."
However, given the array of things which have been termed "Dutch" in English, does "Dutch Reach" sound naughty to anyone else?
Literally first paragraph.
I personally use my side mirrors (and curse cyclists riding the Nordic gloom without any form of light).
Its taught as a good practice in driving schools in the Netherlands because we have so many cyclists around. Making it a law though and fining people 1000 pounds for opening their door with the wrong hand? Feels a bit excessive.
But you'd never get that impression from most of the reporting around this. Deliberately misleading outrage fodder in the headlines, followed ten paragraphs later by a more honest explanation of what's happening, which directly contradicts the original headline. It's pretty disgraceful, but the pervasiveness of it smacks of some lobbying outfit feeding copy to overworked journos.
https://road.cc/content/news/press-misrepresents-highway-cod... "It is already an offence to open a car door, or cause or permit it to be opened, so as to cause injury, punishable by a maximum fine of £1,000."
That makes more sense.
It's pretty obvious that when you park anywhere that's no a booth or your driveway you need to look before opening your door. I honestly don't understand that this is a problem. Do people else where constantly open their doors into traffic? Just "WHAM, door gets pulled off by a passing car". If you're not used to driving places with bikelanes I can maybe see it being a problem in the passanger side of the car.
Not really. It's the same - as close as a few finger widths.
To pick a city street at random, look at [1] - a road so quiet you can't see a single moving car in either direction, and it's wide enough you could fit five vehicles abreast.
Americans don't pass within a few finger widths of a parked car, because they can leave a six foot gap just as easily.
[1] https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@37.438309,-122.1449024,3a,75y...
>Do people else where constantly open their doors into traffic?
If by traffic you mean cars, then they have a much more obvious noise and appearance in mirrors. Bikes are easier to miss.
Cycling infrastructure in the US is typically a painted line along the gutter or parking lane, if we're lucky to get that.
Because of that I'll often ride in the car lane even if there is a bike gutter, because it is so dangerous to ride next to people pulling in and out and opening their doors.
I dream of visiting the Netherlands or Copenhagen to cycle one day.
However I'm very aware of checking the mirror before opening the car in parallel parking situations, as I have been on the receiving end of a car door while biking before I even was allowed to drive.
"Highway Code: 'Dutch reach' rule change to Highway Code welcomed"
This is guidance on how to avoid knocking people off their bikes, which remains just as illegal as it used to be. Doesn't matter what method you use to achieve that goal, as long as you achieve it.
Is it legal in the US to stretch out your arm in the path of a jogger and knock them flying? How about if you do it with a car door?
{current headline on HN is “Dutch reach” car door opening method becomes law in the UK (bbc.com)". I suspect the BBC headline was originally that nonsense but was quickly picked up by a second pair of eyes}
> Is it legal in the US to stretch out your arm in the path of a [bicyclist] and knock them flying? How about if you do it with a car door?
Kind of.
We had terrorists blowing up the UK from the 70s onwards (and before really) with bombs. Very few events where someone uses a car to kill someone for political purposes though.
Someone found guilty of causing death by dangerous driving usually get far lighter sentences than those found guilty of causing death by manslaughter, and the majority of car drivers that cause death don't even get charged
So in the Highway Code, if it says Must or Must Not , then its law.
Expand the section called "Wording of the Highway Code". https://www.gov.uk/guidance/the-highway-code/introduction
Unfortunately despite all the UK Gov website cheer leading on sites like this, I cant provide a link to the expanded section in question!
Magistrates will take the above as Law, its one of those grey areas of law, so selective application of the law exists, and thats before you even get into a debate of whether you have a say in the laws that you are born under if you havent moved abroad.
It's guidance from the government, not a '3rd party group'.
Separately the DVLA make standards you need to meet to pass a driving test. Those are not laws, you can break at least some legally.
This isn't being added to the test criteria either.
So the government recommend you do this. But if you literally never do it in your whole life you wont be punished or sanctioned or inconvenienced in even the smallest of ways.
So it doesn't matter any more than the government recommendation to have white wine with fish...
> Sort of, but not quite. It's actually published by the DfT
What do you think the 'Department of Transport' is a department of if not the government?
> It's guidance
> So the government recommend you do this.
What do you think the difference is between a recommendation and guidance?
I said 'It's guidance from the Government' and you corrected me with 'So the government recommend you do this.' Eh?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Highway_Code#:~:text=Altho....
Although failure to comply with the other rules would not, in itself, cause a person to be prosecuted, the Highway Code may be used in court under the Road Traffic Act 1988 to establish liability
> The Highway Code doesn't have the force of law.
I would imagine it's the case that driver's education/training must (or is more likely to) adapt curriculum to cover things in the Highway Code. And if so, this def seems the right approach.
Making things illegal seems much less effective than making things habit.
We have a LOT of laws and very little enforcement. Passing a law is seen as a cheap and easy way to "do something" without actually doing anything (especially anything that might need resourcing).
We had very strict covid mask rules. 50% ignore them. The government claims they've done all that can be done.
Only they still apply in some places eg on TfL where the mayor decides not the home secretary,
And he is keeping that law.
But he is also not enforcing it, just asking people only they are legally required to do it.
So we have a few laws here. None of them enforced. And loads of covid, though that is much less of a problem now everyone has been offered a vaccine.
Im not really bothered, Im just saying we love laws and we don't enforce them at all here in blighty. :)
Which law requires face coverings?
I can't see anything in The Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (England) (No. 3) Regulations 2020, and the Public Transport requirement has been rescinded.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-60038741
I think you want this law:
The Health Protection (Coronavirus, Wearing of Face Coverings) (England) Regulations 2021
https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2021/1340/regulation/3/m...
I don't think it's been repealed. But the Home Sec and PM have said it won't be enforced (as of last night?). But it wasn't being enforced anyway.
So as I say, a massive fucking mess.
Expiry:
15.—(1) These Regulations expire at the end of 20th December 2021.
To be honest looking at the cases in Scotland (where mask compliance from Sep-Dec was high) with England (where it wasn't genrally required and few wore them outside of public transport) I can't tell if the rules made any difference at a population level .
In practice, most cyclists will tell you that cars never stay put after running them over, and that video evidence, even of clearly intentional harm, doesn‘t lead anywhere: the Crown prosecutor ignores those unless the press covers it in detail. Having a fine that police officers will deem excessive is a sureway to have them ignore more complaints.
That's silly hyperbole.
More likely, the main "enforcement" would be losing points when taking a driving test. That encourages driving instructors to teach it; and that causes drivers to learn it.
In the case of a collision (e.g. knocking down a passing cyclist), if the driver was seen (by CCTV/dashcam/witnesses) to not use this procedure, then that could be taken into account regarding liability, insurance claims, etc.
I've been multiply downvoted, though; now I'm curious of how that comment could have been interpreted as "wrong" or "provocative". Not whining or anything: just sincerely (again) curious.
The only thing I think may come into law is that it has to be taught in driving schools.
The Highway Code doesn't have the force of law. If something in it says "you should do X", its a recommendation. If you don't do it, it won't look good if you're in a crash and might contribute to a dangerous driving charge, but it's not outright illegal.
If it says you "must not do X", then it it something illegal. However, it's not the Highway Code that makes it illegal, there's genuine legislation that the Highway Code is paraphrasing.
The article doesn't bother to say which it is.
This is such a great example of navel gazing, self-congratulatory pontification that is detached from reality.
Just look in the mirrors and over your shoulder before opening the door like you are supposed to. If people aren’t doing that already, how is them also not following this additional practice going to improve anything? Short answer, it won’t.
Just check your surroundings. No self-important technocratic complication needed.
That’s literally what they’re encouraging. That’s what the Dutch Reach is - a way to look in your mirrors and over your shoulder.
That being said, ultimately as a cyclist myself, I trust exactly 0 laws to keep me safe and am 100% untrusting off all other vehicles and people. Because reality simply is that I am the squishy human and they are the mechbot driver.
Did you notice that not a single person in the video report/demonstration even wore a helmet while racing past cars at unsafe speeds and distances? That weird sense of entitlement of cyclists is something I simply cannot understand. You are responsible for you’re own safety, so slow down and keep a distance like a smart person would.
This is a way to achieve exactly that!
> or are even foreigners
Oh no not foreigners!
Do you think people don't know how to drive in other countries?
If you are going fast enough within the arc of a door that you don’t have time to slow down, you're going faster than you are able to safely control.
You are putting yourself and others in danger. You are a missile on the road, slow down or leave more room...
It’s irresponsible to cycle that fast by doorways.
> It is already an offence to open a car door, or cause or permit it to be opened, so as to cause injury, punishable by a maximum fine of £1,000.
Furthermore, getting out of a car can be dangerous. This just seems like a sensible habit. There are no disadvantages.
The responsibility for not thrusting a car door into the path of another vehicle must lie with the only person who is capable of preventing a collision - the person opening the door. Anything else would be a ridiculous policy.
I don't care if you're jaywalking, opening a car door, incapable of using the skinny pedal in sufficient quantity when entering the street, whatever, don't do it in front of other faster moving shit that will have to take evasive action regardless of what that type of traffic that other shit happens to be.
You wanna jump into a traffic flow that you have no business being in on account of your speed, go ahead, but whatever happens after that is on you. A cyclist is no more at fault for hitting a car door extended 0.2sec of distance in front of them than a train is for hitting whatever tried to beat it to the crossing.
However, in the UK at least, it can be extremely difficult to be conclusively far enough from all parked cars to ensure that someone flinging a door open won't hit you. Roads simply are not wide enough, and double parked streets of cars are ubiquitous, as are impatient cars who will harass cyclists trying to stay out of the door zones. On top of that, cycle lanes are often directly next to parked cars with little door zone allowance[1]. The bikes don't have to cycle in the lane, but if you don't, you may get punishment-passed by motor vehicles.
You also do not have to be going very fast to die in a dooring. Even leaving aside the effect of a metal and glass slab on a human face, car doors are actually extremely good at bouncing cyclists directly and rapidly into adjacent or oncoming traffic at almost any speed - even if the door hits the cyclist from the side by being opened as they pass.
It's also very unlikely that a bike injures someone exiting a car anyway, as opening the door and climbing out into the road are two very separate actions. If the bike doesn't see the door opening and someone getting as they approach, then it is indeed likely they were cycling unsafely. But that doesn't happen very often because that will also be very bad for the cyclist (as opposed to to car taking off a door and a person next to it, which doesn't injure the driver), and it would have been happening for the last 40 metres of the cyclist's approach.
It's also untrue that if you are driving down a narrow road with a single traffic lane and double parked cars (very common in UK urban areas) and someone flings a door open and you hit it that it's necessarily your fault. It's impossible to drive such that you could always stop in time, someone could even open the door while you're alongside when you're doing 1mph.
Cyclists are not surrounded by a metal cage so should not be held to the same rules. Where I'm from, the cyclist is (almost) never responsible.
This response puts both property and a narrow understanding of the law in front of lives.
First let’s just acknowledge that the article is describing a small change in driver habit to save lives. Not the lives of drivers, but the bicyclists.
Second, while bicyclist are often treated like other vehicles by default there are many exceptions made for bicycles, this is a reasonable one.
Finally this comment seems to demonstrate a deeply fundamental misunderstanding of the design flaw of putting a bunch of parked cars directly next to a bike lane with no safety gap.
There is almost no safe speed to bike next to a car where you can practically avoid a door that could open any second. This is why lanes are given a wide berth of parked cars. This same affordance has not been given to most bike lanes as cities have attempt to squeeze bike lanes into existing roads. It leaves bicyclists a sophie’s choice: ride in the road with the cars, or in the bike lane with the doors.
If only that was always true: this[1] kind of lane is far too common. It's completely counter-productive as it actually encourages the cyclist into the door zone without being wide enough to keep passing traffic at a safe distance (also a dashed-line means cars may enter the lane anyway, so it's indicative only).
The safest place to cycle here is probably so far right that a car won't be able to pass without a full overtake in the oncoming lane, moving to the left only when there are no door hazards. also you should keep right though the choke-point island, as you do not want a car to overtake you there, unless you want a taste of one of those bollards - imagine being a bike next to the black oncoming car.
However, such an assertive riding position tends to upset cars who may instead punishment-pass the cyclist. Understandably, many cyclists prefer not to open themselves to such bullying and will instead stick to their lanes, and risk doorings instead.
Even quite wide, well-marked and "safe-looking" lanes can still be mostly within the door zone[2].
I learned the hard way that I was safer taking the lane and having some angry drivers (I guess OP would be happy to treat me like a car?) than to put myself in poorly designed bike lanes.
That said, I think that sort of logic is deeply flawed and the people peddling it to be asinine. Traffic participants have an obligation to not obstruct other traffic flows (like opening your door into a bike lane, or pulling a car into traffic at insufficient speed) without appropriate care to ensure it does not require other traffic participants to take evasive maneuvers.