Hacker News Reader

Comment by warfangle | Hacker News Reader

I'd like it if cars had a warning system for when you open the street-side door, as well.

I know far too many people who have gotten broken bones by having someone open their door unexpectedly into the bike lane.

View on HN

What I want is a stick or something that comes out near the bumper to block the path of bikes to protect my passengers. If they ignore it, they get deflected off into the sidewalk.

I try to pull as close as I can to block bikes from getting between me and the curb and still have idiots trying to do 20mph in an impossibly tiny gap.

Filtering is legal in many places, and municipal governments explicitly enable this by placing bike lanes on the curbside of auto traffic. So if you live in one of these municipalities, all you are accomplishing is impeding the flow of bicycle traffic, making it actively dangerous for bicycles to follow the law, and worst of all perpetuating the so-called "war" between bicycle and automobile traffic.

Disclaimer: I avoid the issue by travelling in the center of the auto traffic lane. If you don't like that, tough luck.

A couple second delay before my car permits me to open the door? No thanks...

It wouldn't have to lock it. A simple warning LED located on the upper part of the door at eye-level that lights up and blinks when an oncoming cyclist from the rear is detected would prevent a lot of accidental injuries.

Jesus. A thing that warns you that you're about to injure another human being, and you're upset you might have to wait 2 seconds?

I hope that was sarcasm on your part...

I think their issue was not having control over when they leave the vehicle. If the locks are computer controlled, there's risk of a false alarm preventing your exit, potentially in an emergency.

I agree that this is better left to a warning indicator.

Yep, that's exactly my issue. Warning light is fine, lockout is not. Too many situations in which a lockout would be dangerous - false positives/failure of the system locking me into the car, carjackers taking advantage of it by parking a bike behind me, etc.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com