Bike lanes are a great way to carve out space for people biking on the road. Nonetheless, many bike lanes — particularly painted ones — place people biking in a space between travel lanes and the parking lane. This space is ripe for cyclists getting doored, or at least forcing cyclists to swerve into traffic to avoid that door.
Dooring — the act of someone inside a car opening a car door without noticing traffic is approaching — is an incredibly dangerous act that often happens so quickly that cyclists on the receiving end rarely even have time to touch the brakes.
Ford and Volkswagen have recently released new systems in their cars that they claim can prevent cyclists from getting doored by sensor systems already built into the car. As important as it is for automakers to do something about cyclists being injured from being doored, should the technology even need to exist in the first place when better solutions exist?
Cyclists being doored, by the numbers
The danger of being doored on the mean streets of L.A.: How can this hazard for cyclists prevented? https://t.co/qBCtHiWNfQ pic.twitter.com/HOFOyX1Ntf
— Paul Duginski (@CartoonKahuna) December 20, 2023
Dooring incidents, according to one report from the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA), comprise 16 percent of all bike-vehicle accidents that result in an injury or fatality. Another study from the City of Vancouver found that 15.2 percent of all collisions happened from dooring incidents and that those incidents did not include injuries that came from swerving away from an opening door.
You can’t just rely on good reflexes to avoid being doored by a driver. Otherwise, four-time Tour de France winner Chris Froome would’ve been able to avoid getting doored himself. The same goes for Robert George, who died of traumatic brain injuries from an accident involving being doored, according to the Los Angeles Times.
Most cities have an ordinance or law of some kind to encourage people to look out before they open the door. That doesn’t mean people are any more conscientious about their surroundings, of course. Car manufacturers then, have introduced some tech-driven innovations in hopes of reducing the number of cyclists being doored.
Ford, Volkswagen, and others introduce exit warning features
Automotive behemoths Ford Motor Company and Volkswagen Auto Group have recently released driver assistance features aimed to improve road safety. Ford’s Exit Warning system lets the driver know to check their surroundings before opening their doors if someone is in close proximity to the car.
When the car is parked and someone walking or biking is within proximity, Ford’s Exit Warning system flashes a visual warning on the car’s dashboard as well as an audible alert chime.
Ford says the Exit Warning system works on both sides of the car. For cyclists, this is particularly useful for painted bike lanes that are to the left of parking lanes, or for separated bike lanes to the right of a street parking lane.
Ford claims the system is only activated when other road user speeds exceed 7 kilometers per hour (4.3 miles per hour) in a bid to prevent false alert activations. Those alert chimes will feel just a bit more shocking the less frequently they happen, I suspect.
Volkswagen’s system takes its exit warning system up a notch. Not only will Volkswagen’s system issue audible chimes and visual warnings, but some cars will actually prevent the door from unlatching for a split moment. The system is said to work even if the car has been turned off for up to three minutes.
These systems use radar systems already built into many new cars. Car manufacturers can do the same thing Ford, Volkswagen, and others have done here simply by keeping their pedestrian detection system and blind spot monitors active until the driver has left the car.
If your car already has a pedestrian detection system that goes off as you back up the car, your car can likely be programmed to do the same thing that Ford and Volkswagen do here. But does that mean all cars should have this system?
Should cars come with this technology? Yes and no
A car shouldn’t need a nanny system to encourage people to look out for their surroundings before opening their doors. Ideally, we wouldn’t have to wear helmets. Hell, in an ideal world, we wouldn’t even need to argue about needing to put in bike lanes and spaces for pedestrians.
We could encourage people to use the Dutch Reach technique, as championed on TikTok by Chris Froome after his dooring. The Dutch Reach is a practice of people using the hand opposite of the door – using your right hand if your steering wheel is on the left side – to force yourself to swivel your body and look out as you exit the car.
@chrisfroome Ride ended badly with a shredded elbow from getting doored #crash #cycling #advice ♬ original sound – Chris Froome
The Netherlands has trained and tested drivers on how they open their doors by using the Dutch Reach. They don’t even have a name for it, simply because it’s how you open a car door.
Auto manufacturers could also adopt the Aston Martin-style door handles, which according to automotive YouTuber Doug DeMuro, encourages people to use their right hand, forcing them to look over their shoulders as they exit the car.
None of these systems provide safety in negligence, however. It’s easy to tune out the bings, bongs, beeps, and warnings that a new car issues. In many cars, such safety reminders can even be turned off. And as effective as the Dutch Reach can be sometimes, encouraging action is far different than mandating one.
I hate to sound like a broken record, but the answer is that if cities want to get serious about lowering cyclist fatalities and injuries from being doored, infrastructure needs to change. We need spaces that are forgiving for people to make mistakes.
The City of Vancouver study mentioned above reports that doorings were the most common type of reported cycling collision. 15.2 percent of all reported cycling collisions happened from being doored. Approximately two-thirds of those doorings occurred on streets without designated bikeways, and 20 percent of them occurred on streets with shared-use lanes.
That same study offered two solutions. The first was an effort to remove chances of being doored, either by providing improved buffer space, providing protected bike lanes, or removing on-street parking altogether. The second was to encourage education campaigns reminding people to be conscientious of cyclists before they open their doors, and even to use the Dutch Reach when applicable.
Should cars come with this safe exit warning technology? As helpful as this technology could be, no. We shouldn’t need to rely on this type of technology. While most new cars already have the hardware for these safety features, it does nothing to increase awareness for those driving older cars.
Building infrastructure takes time and money. The Dutch Reach though? It only requires us to think about which hand we open our car door with. Now that’s innovation.
Welcome to the Urbanist Update. My job here might be as a tech editor, but I’ve also spent tons of time studying transportation, city planning, and engineering. Here are some of the things I’ve found interesting over the past week related to biking in cities, cycling infrastructure, and urbanism.
What is urbanism? In short, it is the study of how the inhabitants of an urban area interact with their towns and cities. If you care about building sustainable communities that let you live a happy and healthy life, then this is the spot for you. See previous Updates here.