This is an idea that I found incredibly effective. I heard about it once, started doing it, and now I always do it, and I can always see if someone is coming.
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.
> 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.
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.
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.
Absolutely, and slowing down on a bike is also the way. You can generally see if someone is in a car and about to exit into the road.
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.
My favorite around here (DC) are the drivers who get angry that I'm going 19mph in a 20mph zone, floor it playing chicken with the oncoming traffic to pass me, and then spend the next 15 blocks tailgating the same bus I was following.
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.
When it comes to slowing down or stopping, getting car drivers to slow down or stop is nothing compared to trying to get bicycles to so do. The vast majority of cars will stop at an intersection. The vast majority of bicyclists will not. Ask a car to respect a very slow limit in a school zone? No problem. For fear of tickets most every car will slow down. But ask a bicyclist to respect a school zone or stop at a pedestrian crossing and they will stare in bewilderment. A speed limit? For a bicycle?
(As a kid I was ticketed while on rollerblades for speeding in a 15kph zone. In many jurisdictions the rules apply to everyone.)
> Ask a car to respect a very slow limit in a school zone? No problem. For fear of tickets most every car will slow down.
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.
> (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.)
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.
This is a very selective view, and it's inaccurate in several ways. It's flat out ignorance to claim that car drivers follow the speed limit, reliably stop at intersections or stop lights, etc. Where that's true, it's only to the extent that there's heavy enforcement — here in Washington DC, I rarely make it a day without seeing someone in a car running a stop sign or going the wrong way down a one-way street (in front of a playground, too), and slowing for a school zone means going from twice the limit to rolling the stop sign at 10mph while using a phone.
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
Then lobby to have the laws changed so that bicycles don't have to obey the same rules. At the moment, rules like speed limits and stop signs apply to all conveyances on the road, even horse-drawn carriages. The fact that bicycles are better for safety/cities/traffic/environment is not part of the law. Maybe it should be, maybe they should be given special privileges, but that just isn't the way the law is written today.
Again, it's factually incorrect to say that bicyclists are somehow unique in not perfectly following road laws. If you actually pay attention, count how many times you see a driver doing the same things you're complaining about — and especially how often either activity puts someone else at risk. It's truly eye-opening once you stop thinking of drivers doing that as normal because that's the predominant form of road use.
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.
What I've observed is that everybody in the US -- cars, bikes, pedestrians -- is driven by opportunity and convenience. Cars drive above the speed limit while texting. Bikes and cars roll through stop signs. Bikes take short-cuts that avoid obstacles and intersections. And so forth. The law is the law, but is not an immovable boundary condition. People will factor the likelihood of enforcement or injury into their habits. Enforcement (in my locale) follows patterns of crashes or complaints. Parts of town where lawless cyclists cause actual problems will find themselves on the receiving end of an enforcement "sting."
I don't generally think it's a good idea to enforce that every road user have to follow rules that were designed for cars.
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.
Cars weigh many tons and take up an entire lane. Bicycles do not. Many thousands of deaths per year caused by automobiles in the US. For bicycles, it's vanishingly small.
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.
> Cars weigh many tons and take up an entire lane. Bicycles do not.
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.
Oh, I understand, but pushbikes are now just a subset. I was passed this morning in a school zone by a fat-tire electric "bicycle" doing at least 45 in a 30kph zone (he also blew through a crosswalk with kids in it). The fact that some people choose to move their bikes with human muscle, and others use a mix of muscle and motor, is beside the point. They are all just unregulated bicycles.
<strike>It is misleading to refer to anything going 45mph as a "bicycle" even with quotes. It's an unlicensed motorcycle. E-bikes top out at 28mph or less in most US states. In many other countries the limit is ~15mph. Many mopeds can't even hit 45mph.
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.)
Please read more carefully. 28mph equals 45kph. So the bike I mentioned was very likely doing 28mph, his max speed, roughly 50% over the posted limit and well within pushbike territory in hilly terrain. (School zone are generally 30kph.)
In the UK an e-bike should only provide power when traveling at 20mph/32km or below. Above that it's classed as a moped and needs a helmet, license, etc.
> I've never met a cyclist that doesn't slow, look both ways, etc, at city intersections.
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.
> you can slow right down and check the parked car occupants to see if they are there.
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)
I think it helps a lot if oncoming cars slow down a lot, like they do when passing another car in a tight space. When an oncoming car slows down I feel safer passing closer to them, which lets me keep further away from the parked cars.
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.
To be fair, that's Failing Grayling; the minister who awarded a 14 million pound ferry contract to a company with no boats. Cluelessness, lack of attention and obliviousness to reality is his raison d'être - I'm not sure his ability to exit a vehicle should be representative of the rest of the population.
I'm a new driver (~6 months) who used to cycle a lot in the past (I stopped due to one ride where there two collisions involving cyclists and cars and a further severe car-car collision all in the space of about an hour), but I've always overlooked considering the door zone for oncoming cyclists on narrow roads.
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.
I've been doing this ever since I almost got clipped by a car when getting out of my vehicle. It's honestly just a lot safer and everyone should be doing it.
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.
As a Dutch driver i only know about this technique from foreign media. I was never taught to do this during my driving lessons, don't do it and don't know anyone else that opens their door this way.
I'm an American driver who (obviously) wasn't taught this, either. However, I read about it around the same time a bicycle gutter was painted in front of my house, and it stuck with me. As a result, every time I open my car door I think "Dutch Reach!" and I check my mirror for cyclists (I don't actually open the door with my opposite hand). So even if it's apocryphal, it's a catchy idea and you should take the credit.
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.
I think your technique of keeping the door ajar even just two or three seconds is a better idea than this convoluted Dutch reach. It gives any cyclist information that a door is opening.
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.
In the Netherlands the car is always at least 50% at fault in accidents with squishy traffic (cyclists, pedestrians, skaters etc). This motivates people to look carefully before opening doors :)
It might look like risk taking but because of laws like this and excellent road design it is actually very save.
> In the Netherlands the car is always at least 50% at fault in accidents with squishy traffic
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.
> why don’t cyclists ride in the middle of the street and/or slow down a bit
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.)
So what does the cyclist do with that warning? Given space they might stop, which is pretty discourteous by the person opening the door, but with insufficient time they might well swerve into a traffic to avoid the collision, which could be far worse.
A good safety protocol incorporates redundancies. The "warning" you're arguing against is secondary to first and foremost carefully checking for approaching cyclists. Both the parent and I were clear about this. (I'll add I'm horrified by everything else the parent wrote.)
> 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.
I agree with opening the door a crack as the final check, after you think no cyclist is coming. It seemed the parent post was advocating opening a crack as a first line check. It was that I was opposing.
How is that any different than cars and turn signals?
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.
If I were cycling past a car and the door began to open, I would (and do) respond on the assumption that that door is going to open all the way. You don't have to be moving fast for that to be problematic. Moreover, there are plenty of places you have continuous parked cars. If you slowed to a genuinely safe speed you may as well be walking.
Dutch cyclist here :-) you slow down a little, look over your shoulder to see whether there is space and move over. If there is a car at slow speed behind you they see this "look" and typically slow down or make some space as well in anticipation. But if there's a bus at high speed or an asshole when you look over your shoulder, you stop before hitting the door.
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.
Same, but then again we were taught to be very cautious while exiting the car. I think you can even flunk your entire exam if you get out of the car without looking / being cautious. Plus this comes more natural to us as most of us are also cyclists.
It really doesn't matter where your hand is if the intend is to be cautious to begin with.
Oh definitely. You need to constantly be checking all your mirrors. If you get out without checking your door/rearview mirror i would expect them to fail you on the spot.
Also a Dutch driver: I was taught this (around 2010 this was), but yeah I've never heard of it outside of driving school (until today) and I'm pretty sure it wasn't checked during my exam.
This is what is called driving a narrative or colloquially 'gaslighting'.
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.
Literally nobody does this. But the Netherlands is the best country in the world when it comes to cycling. The infrastructure is sublime, you are protected physically from most traffic. Some cities have hardly any stoplights and of course all the roads are perfectly flat.
Sometimes I fail to realize how good our infra actually is, and what it does to society.
As a motorcyclist I welcome any rules which make drivers more aware.
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 vividly remember visiting NYC for the first time and being shocked that while starting to cross 8th ave and 15th st, that a yellow cab was already making a turn the second I put my foot in the intersection and was slowing creeping towards me. It's probably just the nature of a big city.
At least compared with a few other fairly big cities I've lived in this is a distinctively New York and even Manhattan phenomenon. I drive rarely here but my assumption is that drivers would often never get to turn the corner if they gave crossing pedestrians the polite space they do elsewhere, because of a combination of (foot) traffic density and pedestrians ignoring their light.
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 vividly remember visiting NYC for the first time and being shocked that while starting to cross 8th ave and 15th st, that a yellow cab was already making a turn the second I put my foot in the intersection and was slowing creeping towards me.
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.
My car has red reflective stripes on the inside of the door edge, so they can be seen from behind as soon as the door is ajar. I put them on myself, since as a cyclist I'd like them on all cars.
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.
My guess is the kind of careless people who don't check for cyclists tend to be the kind that throw their doors wide open in one movement, so while this doesn't hurt, it gives cyclists a split-second's warning at best.
Certainly, it gives a cyclist a split second if someone opens a door suddenly. That's not what it's really for - nothing can prevent that. For people opening a door sensibly (most people), it gives a unambiguous warning that a door is ajar ahead maybe 5 or 10 seconds before the door opens more. In the dark, where reflectors work, that's a lot more than you might get if you don't notice the door is ajar.
Absolutely it is (I always double check the mirror and crack the door first, even as a passenger) but it's defense in depth, and as a cyclist, if someone's going to open the door anyway, I'd rather be able to see it that assume they've seen me. I have lights, but as a driver, I also know that even the brightest bike lights can by surprising easy to miss.
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.
Tweaks to make people look the right way are very effective.
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.
A quick search indicates that a 'puffin crossing' is defined by having smart sensors to detect the presence of pedestrians, rather than a pelican's timer-based system. So you may scurry across the crossing and then sensors immediately clear it for road traffic again. Across multiple sites, this seems to be consistent and it makes no mention of the location of the cross/do not cross indicators.
Like I intuitively understand what you're talking about, and have seen them, but many sites don't seem to support that definition
Sure, there are a bunch of related tweaks but the others aren't relevant to today's topic (the "Dutch Reach" to encourage car users to look where a bike would be before opening the car door)
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.
A Google image search for each will probably be best. They are relatively technical terms within highways, most people wouldn't be able to describe them as well as the person you replied to, so there aren't all that many good diagrams comparing the types.
Wasn't aware of specific rules around this in the Netherlands and this definitely didn't come up in my drivers exam. The only place I heard about this is foreign media over the past years.
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.
Same here. As far as I know this isn't an official rule of any type in the Netherlands, it's just what people do because we have lots of cyclists. And every kids knows because their parents look before opening a door as well.
If you drive in an urban environment, please remember to consider other road users (since most road design does not protect people outside of cars). Dooring can be extremely dangerous! Here are a couple examples that illustrate how lethal this simple mindless action could become:
Is this "rule" a guideline or a law? Is this something they want to teach or are they going to hand out ticket for opening doors with the wrong hand?
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.
I ride a bike as my daily driver and have owned and operated motorcycles extensively in the past.
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.
It is a recommendation only, so you won't be fined, but during court proceedings failing to follow this or other recommendations in the highway code can increase your liability.
If its not a law, then I'm not sure it will have much impact in realworld cases. Any collision between a bicycle and a car door remains an impact between a moving vehicle on the road and a stationary vehicle (Technically the word is "allision" when a moving object strikes a fixed object). Longstanding presumptions will remain heavily weighted against the moving vehicle. And proving which hand was used would seem difficult even with blanket camera footage. Even if only a guideline, burden will be on the bicycle to prove that the guideline had been broken.
My personal habit is to pop the latch for the door so the seal breaks, letting the door move maybe an inch. It's enough to create a very clear line around the door for anyone coming to see that the door is opening. And of course I then always look to see if someone is coming.
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.
> 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.
Personally I'm just waiting for the "all cars are required to have rear cameras which automatically report tailgaters to the police with appropriate fines and point deductions" law.
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.
I was trying to figure out how in the world these accidents happen and then I remembered the poor sods unlucky enough to live where they have to park on the street. Putting bicycles and automobiles on the same road seems like madness in general. I wonder if modern cars with lane-keeping and other such sensor equipment are programmed to check and warn for oncoming cyclists.
I must be mad, riding my bicycle daily, on the same roads as cars for more than 15 years. 0 accidents. By the way, the simplest way to avoid a dooring accident is not to ride on the door zone. When I see a bike-only lane next to parked cars I take it as an indication of where not to ride. They make bike-only infrastructure to kick us off the roads anyway, not for safety.
I think the problem here is that it's very hard to enforce and requires everyone to open car doors in an unintuitive way. What would be better is an automated system, say something that flashed the rear lights and made a sound before the door opened. Then you would have 100% compliance and people could still open doors in the way that they are accustomed to (which will probably happen anyway).
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.
People opening car doors without looking first, was one of the things that surprised me after moving to California. In the Netherlands, people are much more careful and make sure there is no bycicle crashing into your opened car door.
We have many more bikes in the Netherlands of course.
As a parent with a child who's learning to drive, I love this idea and I'm teaching it to him.
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 have a pet idea for car doors to make the right thing easy, a Poka Yoke. Invert the door handle and cut out 180 degrees and place it abreast of the drivers chest, so the driver will have a tough time using his closer hand, but he can cup his other hand to slide up and open the handle. The door will open a crack, allowing driver to hear stuff, and exposing reflective markings and lights to warn people behind. The handle forces the Dutch reach, and the door design allows warning time even if driver is oblivious.
I just check my mirror and crack my door and don't throw it wide open.
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.
I doubt this is as popular as people thing it is. what's the logic of it? the problem is people forget to check before opening the door right? so the same people will just forget to use this uncomfortable "technique".
I'm pretty sure that it's opening the car door using your opposing hand, so that you naturally look backwards to ensure there's no cyclist approaching that can be harmed by a suddenly opened car door.
I personally use my side mirrors (and curse cyclists riding the Nordic gloom without any form of light).
The explanation is under the header of "What is the 'Dutch reach'?". It includes the sentence "It encourages people to use their opposite hand to open a vehicle door, forcing them to turn their body and head when getting out".
> The practice is used widely across Europe and encourages people to open vehicle doors with their opposite hand to avoid injuries to passing cyclists.
> The practice is used widely across Europe and encourages people to open vehicle doors with their opposite hand to avoid injuries to passing cyclists.
OK. What does the practice actually consist of? Does it require anything? If I'm taken to court, is "I thought about using my left hand, but I decided not to" a defense?
For those to lazy to read, it's basically opening the car door with the hand furthest from the door. This automatically turns your shoulder/eyesight and makes it easier to look for passing cyclists.
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.
Which isn't what's happening. The fine is for injuring somebody with your car door, not for failing to follow the officially approved method of opening it.
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.
Yep. To further contextualise this, the Highway Code is a set of guidelines which summarises good practice to avoid breaking actual laws and be seen as a considerate driver. There is a law against driving a vehicle in a dangerous condition, for example, and the Highway Code's suggestion you check the lights and brakes work every time you use the car will tend to reduce the chances of you being fined for driving your car in a dangerous condition. It'd probably be a good idea to do carry out those checks regardless of whether driving a vehicle in a dangerous condition or not. But it's neither necessary nor sufficient to carry out these checks to avoid being fined.
I thinks it's a little weird. Denmark has cyclists all around as well, and cars. We're just taught not to open the door without checking for traffic (be it cars, bikes or pedestrians). You're taught that as a kid by your parents.
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.
I realize the article is about the UK, but yes, people on the US open the doors into traffic because they never would consider a cyclist is approaching. Car is default, lanes are huge, and most drivers don't even imagine cycling for transportation.
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.
I think the main difference is that bikes generally ride closer to the parked cars than cars. But yeah, looking before making any movement on the road seems like a no brainer.
Many American cities' roads are absolutely gigantic, compared to in Europe. And I'm not just talking about their multi-lane freeways - this goes for residential streets too.
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.
As a Dutch person, I was never taught this, I can see it is good practice but we just don't do it. All we do is check over our shoulders before we open the door because we know there can be a cyclist. Why? Because we are all cyclists so we know it can happen...
I can't remember getting taught this method in my Dutch Driving lessons (ca 2008), and funnily enough I don't even know with what hand I open the door, I'll have to consciously pay attention next time.
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.
Claimed Headline is wrong, and not what the BBC article says. Actual headline is
"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}
One of the side effects of more restrictive gun laws is that in countries with such laws, terrorists reach for slower moving, but much larger caliber and just as deadly, projectile weaponry to commit their mayhem (i.e., motor vehicles).
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
I would see those parts as just explaining the law, where the law is a separate thing, rather than defining the law. Maybe that’s just splitting hairs, though.
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.
No, you're right. Those sections are included in the Highway Code to inform drivers, but it's not the placement in the code that makes them law - that's the original Act that the Code refers to.
A helpful comment below by @dhesive_wombat mentioned:
> 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.
Sort of, but not quite. It's actually published by the DfT and the DVLA. But it's just a pamphlet. It's not a law.
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...
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
I'm really perplexed as how can they enforce this. Unless a policeman is staring at you intently through you car window in the exact moment that you open your door, how can they know what hand are you using to do it?
The offense is for hurting a cyclist, who presumably will have characteristic wounds and the driver’s details. That sounds enforceable.
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.
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.
We don't have any covid mask rules in England. Last time I was in Scotland I saw wide scale adherence to the rules. Haven't been to Wales or NI for a while.
Scottish adherence to mask rules was astonishingly good from what I saw during a visit. NI on the other hand was much worse than London the few times I was there.
Erg. It's actually much messier than that. The rules for england were rescinded (last night or was it earlier this week). But the laws are still in force, just the Home Sec has said they don't apply.
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. :)
The home secretary has a lot of control over laws, using a thing in the British law system called a "statutory instrument". That is, a law passed by parliament that says that a named person (usually the home secretary) has the power to switch on and off a very specific law as they see fit. There's a surprising number of laws that are controlled that way. It's in some ways a neat invention, in that it allows laws to be fine-tuned without having to go through a whole parliamentary hearing. For instance, if a law against people being obnoxious in some particular way becomes irrelevant because people have stopped being obnoxious in that particular way, then the home secretary can just switch it off. But it has to be set up by parliament in this way in advance.
If TFL is anything like a few months ago there isn't a 'law' requiring mask usage, it's just a condition of carriage[1]. Also, they're enforcing it with enforcement officers. There may not be many and they may do a poor job of actually challenging people but I've seen it at stations a few times.
> The rules for england were rescinded (last night or was it earlier this week). But the laws are still in force,
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.
Public transport requirements have ended in general. But TfL set their own requirements which are legally enforceable. They are staying as they're decided by the mayor.
Expiry:
15.—(1) These Regulations expire at the end of 20th December 2021.
You're right about local rules applying to specific businesses (Sainsburys, TFL etc), I was thinking more England wide.
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 .
> Unless a policeman is staring at you intently through you car window in the exact moment that you open your door, how can they know what hand are you using to do it?
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 asked the question in good faith; I wasn't implying anything and I was sincerely perplexed. Plus, it sparked a lot of good responses of which I'm thankful for.
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.
I don't understand how it can become law. Are there any other laws that tell you how to do something, as opposed to the end result? Here, the idea is that you shouldn't hit cyclists with your door, and the way to achieve that is to look, and the "Dutch reach" is a good way to do it. Why isn't the law just "if you hit a cyclist with your door because you didn't look, that's your fault" instead of specifying a particular way of looking (which may be a problem if you have mobility issues).
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.
Additionally the Highway Code is the “textbook” for the national driving exam. New drivers have to pass a theory test that follows it closely, and may fail the practical test if they don’t follow its guidelines.
There are countless examples of similar requirements. The license requirement for driving is, for example, a specific instruction how to do something. The law doesn’t just say “must be capable to safely operate a car”. I bet building codes are specific with regards to materials being used. Rules of the road require you to use turn signals to, well, signal turning, even if you could communicate the same with other means.
All the time, especially in low incidence high impact scenarios. You must wear a seat belt ("don't get killed in a crash"), your brake disks must be at least this thick ("you should be able to stop before your brakes fade"), you cannot use a mobile phone while driving ("you must pay attention to what's going on around you"). Concrete requirements are much easier to police, even though they may not reach the intended end goal completely (e.g. distracted driving due to hands free calling).
What a contrived crutch being pushed as some kind of futuristic advancement … as is clearly identified by the pulsing techno melody.
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.
You are missing the point. Just do the fundamentals and no other complications are necessary. The problem is likely a far different one, one of people not following the fundamentals, likely because they are not urban drivers or are even foreigners. I check my surroundings before I get out in most parking situations, yet I currently I live in a place where drivers don’t even check both sides when turning at an unregulated intersection as if pedestrians and cyclists simply don’t exist.
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.
Cycling out of the "door zone" is generally considered to be a good idea for obvious reasons.
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.
Then the problem really is the car drivers that expect you to keep off what they think is their road, even if that puts you in danger (that expectation is given official support by the segregated bike path).
If I am riding in a narrow lane I ride in the center of the lane. If they don't like it they can suck it up. I don't like their smelly fumes either or their horn blowing for that matter. The problem is a society that gives all the privileges to car drivers.
In reality, bicycles are often trapped between fast-moving traffic and parked cars for the majority of their travel. At the end of the day, the goal here is to save lives, regardless of who would be at fault. Although, from another user’s comment, it sounds like the person opening the car door would be at least partially responsible, and that was already the case:
> 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.
Maybe your jurisdiction has different road rules, but this seems precisely wrong. How can a driver be expected to stop on a dime for a door that opens into a travel lane with zero warning?
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.
Either traffic participants of all forms are required to avoid causing a higher speed traffic flow to take evasive action or they're not.
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.
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.
> This is why lanes are given a wide berth of parked cars.
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].
Totally agree! It’s hard to summarize the many ways to die as a bicyclist in a single comment.
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.
What you are describing shows that segregated bike lanes are really the cyclists ghetto. Built to kick us cyclists off the roads that the motorists believe are theirs. Look at China, they are building them now, what has changed? Remember the images of the Chinese going to work by bike? Of course, they need to make room for the car. Something like that happened in the Netherlands in the 1940's. We see it happening now in China and other places in Europe.
By the "any accident caused by something in the traffic flow hitting something jumping into that traffic flow is the fault of the former object going too fast" logic that is wildly popular on any discussions of traffic/transportation on HN you are not at all wrong.
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.
I don't think it's legal to open your car in the middle of the street either. The one time this happened to me was when someone jumped out of a taxi in the middle of the road without looking.
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.