If you ride your bicycle much, you may well have been confronted by a driver or passenger opening their door into your path. If you were lucky, they noticed you, pulled it back in and apologized. Or maybe you saw it and were able to ride around the door or brake before reaching it.
Yet many bicyclists are not so lucky. They are unable to avoid riding straight into a door and are left with often serious injuries. Some are thrown from their bicycles into the path of another vehicle and killed. None of these dooring accidents need to happen. It is such a simple thing to avoid. All drivers and their passengers need to do is open their doors properly.
The Dutch Reach
Most people open their vehicle door using the hand nearest the door. The Dutch Reach simply involves opening it with the hand furthest away, in other words, the hand to the inside of the vehicle.
What this does is force a person to twist around toward the rear of the vehicle. That simple movement makes it much more likely that they’ll spot an oncoming bicyclist.
This should not be a substitute for looking in the side mirror. Rather, it gives the person about to step out one more chance to spot an approaching bicyclist. Many dooring incidents would not have happened if the person had actually bothered to check the side mirror in the first place. You’ll often see people leaping out without looking, especially those in a rush or on their phones.
Dooring accidents are easy to avoid, so it’s your right as a bicyclist to seek compensation if someone opens a door into your path and injures you. Experienced legal guidance can help you go about it.