Dooring collisions happen when a driver or passenger opens a car door directly into a cyclist’s line of travel. These accidents can cause devastating injuries and in some cases, can be fatal.
Cyclists are often advised to watch out. That’s easy to say! But scanning rows and rows of parked cars, often with tinted windows, is like looking into a crystal ball. The best piece of advice is to keep a safe distance of 1.5 metres from parked cars. It may seem like the perfect solution, but considering the standard width of most traffic lanes, which is 3 to 3.5 metres, the cyclist would ride in the middle of the lane, blocking all the cars behind them. Needless to say, this would unleash a whole lot of anger from the drivers and a tsunami of honking.
The most reasonable solution is for drivers and passengers of cars to always check for a cyclist coming from behind before opening any car door. Be safe, be home.
