WHY DO THERE HAS TO BE ‘DOORING’?
Carmakers work on ways to avoid such very common incidents
DIAGRAM COURTESY OF ACTIVE TRANSPORTATION ALLIANCE CYCLISTS should keep an eye on parked vehicles by riding outside of the door zone or staying toward the outside of the lane, never ride right next to parked cars.
If you are a cyclist, or a motorcycle rider for that matter, you probably know about the dangers posed by cars and trucks while you're on the road. As a matter of fact, anything that is on wheels and is in motion can be perilous to cyclists. And if you think that parked vehicles pose no harm to cyclists, think again.
In 2006, my wife and I decided to go for a leisurely spin around our village using our newly purchased road bikes and helmets. Just 20 minutes into our ride, a driver of a parked van to our right suddenly opened his door and hit the front part of my wife's bike.
She fell off her bike and since I was closely following behind, I slammed into her fallen bike, and suddenly found myself lying flat on the pavement.
My wife only had a few bruises and was lucky to have avoided any serious head injury even after a part of her helmet got shattered. In my case, I ended up with a bleeding chin and a dislocated pinkie.
My wife just got "doored", a colloquialism and a sort of "rite of passage" among cyclists who get hit by a vehicle's door that was accidentally opened by its driver or passenger, smack into a cyclist's path. The sad thing is, getting doored could result in serious injuries or at times, even death, to the cyclist.
As to the biking accident involving my wife, the vehicle's driver was apologetic and explained that he did not notice that she was already at the side of his van's door since he already had a missing side mirror which was damaged a few weeks earlier.
We were thankful that nothing serious happened, so we just reminded the driver to have his side mirror fixed right away to avoid a repeat of what happened and especially, for everyone's safety.
We were also relieved that the dooring occurred while inside the village where only a few vehicles were passing. It would have been a different scenario had it happened along a busy road with many speeding vehicles.
Underestimated danger
Indeed, getting doored is something cyclists don't want to experience, but its danger is underestimated. However, vehicle manufacturers strongly disagree, stating that there must be ways to prevent such accident from happening.