Car Door vs Ebike

[youtube]I1evdoz9Kvg[/youtube]

That's the problem with all the bike lanes. They always run along side car parking space and its only a matter of time. I ride a tadpole trike have had people open doors into the bike lane. Lucky you can stop very quick on a trike without going over handle bars.

Nasty video though. Lucky the car driver was on the ball and didn't make things worse and run her over.

Kurt.

Check out the bike lanes in Berlin, Germany for an example of how to do it right.

They have a lot of extra wide streets (US style) so they can have really wide sidewalks. So a lot of the bike lanes around the city are actually on the sidewalk . They tend to snake back onto the road here and there, and obviously you need to watch for pedestrians on the bike lane, but it's a good system. Bikes have their own traffic lights too (light in Amsterdam etc).

That is just sad. We have the three foot rule in Arizona. Vehicles aren't supposed to pass you in the same lane within 3 feet. As well you are not suppose to pass within 3 feet of a car in the same lane on a bike. It means technically you quite often cannot ride in the bike lane. Not that anybody really follows or even knows the rules...

It is usually pretty simple to avoid the doors. Don't ride in the lane when there's parked cars there. Instead, take the lane to the left of it. I have to do that all the time on most of the bike-lane-marked roads around here.

Technically, at least in Phoenix (all of AZ, I think) it's illegal anyway, since you have to ride four feet left of any parked vehicles specifically to avoid getting doored. That puts you way outside almost every bike lane I know of that's to the left of parked cars.

There used to be some bike lanes to the RIGHT of parked cars, but I've not seen any for a while now, which is good because those are much worse--you have nowhere to go when somebody does something stupid.


I also have to take the lane frequently even in bike lane areas that don't have parking to the right of the lane, because when they don't have that, they usually have parking allowed *in* the lane, at least during certain hours, but usually all the time (and the police will not generally do anything about people that park there during the disallowed hours, anyway--even though it is easy money for them).



There are of course times that traffic is heavy, and rude, or dangerously stupid, and taking the lane might not be a realistic option, but I try to avoid being on those roads at those times anyway--I would do the same even if in a car.


For AZ riders:
http://www.azbikeped.org/chapter2a.htm

Every time I see stuff like that I thank god my daily route is so much better. The place in that vid, getting doored is just a matter of time.

I can easily avoid such bike lanes and the busier streets. I have either a safe lane, or a street I can safely take a lane. I still have hazards, a long stretch of my route is a 45 mph road with bike lane. I have a nice painted stripe to garantee no car hits me while texting. But luckily everybody wants to drive on the adjacent road, with 65 mph speed.

Yea I worry about that all the time - I always pass parked cars thinking they could open their door anytime, but
sometimes when traffic forces me over it gets me a bit concerned.

I just got a job driving a 40 ft. bus for my city. The instructors were impressed with my consistency in keeping room between the bus and parked cars. They said a careless door-opener gets schooled at least once a year. :wink:

I bitch about how much it sucks to use a bike as a form of actual transportation in my city. One thing I am very grateful for though, is the fact that we have very little on the street parking. It's pretty much non existent outside of downtown and the beaches, so this isn't mush of a problem for me.

IMO - he was travelling too fast for the situation. You do not ride at that speed next to parked cars - EVER. If you're moving along that fast you should take the vehicle lane whenever parked cars are present. Sooner or later an idiot will open the door and you can see the result. In NY it's $150 fine for cars to open their door without checking 1st. Dunno how it's enforced but if a bike get's tagged I've heard the car driver will get that fine.

Bikes lanes in most places suck since every manhole and utility cover get's put in that portion of the roadway. Also alll the trash and debris get's pushed over to that side of the road and don't forget delivery trucks parking in the bike lanes too. In a perfect world bike and pedestrian lanes should be kept well away from car/truck lanes.

Very painful but it could easily have been much worse, the car that was filming could have driven over the person killing them instantly.

I would apportion blame there to all three parties. That person shouldn't have opened the door, the cyclist shouldn't have been that close to the car in the first place and who ever designed that bicycle lane needs to find another job.

My commute is close 15 miles each direction from downtown Chicago out to Skokie, a close suburb. Depending on what route I take, I estimate I pass thousands of parallel-parked cars. I try to stay just to the left of the bike lane, although I've heard of cyclists who will ride close to cars on purpose so that if they get doored, they don't get spit out into the street. I'd rather just avoid the doors altogether by staying away. I've probably had 5-6 incidents in the last few months of people opening their doors right in front of me without looking, where if I were in the bike lane, I would have gotten ejected into the busy street.

If you pass each parked car expecting them to open their door, you should be fine.

I didn't see this, but there was an accident last year on my block where a cyclist got doored and then run over by a bus, killing him.

I can't wait until they build more safe bicycle lanes here. This year they turned a 1/2 mile or so of lanes into "protected" bike lanes. Also, although it's a little unrelated because it doesn't involve parallel parking in the image, there are talks right now determining the use of elevated bike lanes that are a few inches higher than the road.

I fear nothing!
(but doors)

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john7700 said:

I fear nothing!
(but doors)

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Damn I was hoping you had wrote something in tiny font. I was disappointed when I saw it was only a full stop.

gogo said:

I just got a job driving a 40 ft. bus for my city. The instructors were impressed with my consistency in keeping room between the bus and parked cars. They said a careless door-opener gets schooled at least once a year. :wink:

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Great - a bus driver who is a bike rider as well......not many of those around I bet. Generally speaking the two things are polar opposites. Please do what you can to convince your fellow bus drivers that there are actual real living people astride those bicycle things they despise so much.

Especially consider the thing where bus drivers overtake cyclists with a foot to spare, only to pull over at a bus stop immediately as soon as they get past

I butterflied my front wheel once in college by a girl opening a door between the car and the curb on a four-lane city street. I was coming up to a stop light and the passenger decides to jump out. Painful lesson, and dollars for me at the time when dollars were scarce, but no one was hurt.

I make it a habit to look at the rear-view mirrors when passing parked cars, either in an adjacent bike lane or in a traffic lane. You really can see their faces and can get clues as to whether they're going to jump out or not. I'm always amazed at the number of people that open a door without checking their mirrors...

A similar situation is when I'm in the HOV lane on my motorcycle passing miles of backed-up traffic to my right. I'm always on high-alert for people getting impatient and jumping into the HOV lane.

That was ugly but bound to happen. An ebike gives you the option to take the whole lane, so use it.

jonathanm said:

gogo said:

I just got a job driving a 40 ft. bus for my city. The instructors were impressed with my consistency in keeping room between the bus and parked cars. They said a careless door-opener gets schooled at least once a year. :wink:

Click to expand...

Great - a bus driver who is a bike rider as well......not many of those around I bet. Generally speaking the two things are polar opposites. Please do what you can to convince your fellow bus drivers that there are actual real living people astride those bicycle things they despise so much.

Especially consider the thing where bus drivers overtake cyclists with a foot to spare, only to pull over at a bus stop immediately as soon as they get past

Click to expand...

Half of the city is Iowa State University and the city runs the circulator routes on the campus. There are some bike lanes for opposite direction on the only one-way campus street, but here in Iowa the law is that bikes own the lane even when keeping to the right as far as practicable. That combined with a policy of not passing other vehicles in general keeps the peace with bikes and busses. I won't even pass a bike without going into the opposite lane where there was unused side parking (except by the bicyclist) because technically they own the lane + the parking and we all know there can be road crap to be avoided over there.

We do have to block the bike lanes and the right of the lane in general when we set-up for wide turns into tight lanes.

One of the trainers was in my grade school class and raced bikes in high school. Its a very bike friendly atmosphere at work and all the busses have a double bike rack. Sadly, I know residents that would just as soon run over bicyclists as look at them. Ironically, one of them is just as much of an impediment to vehicles as bikes because of how slow he drives. :lol:

the cyclist shouldn't have been that close to the car in the first place

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IMO Wrong she/he should have been driving CLOSER. If a car door opens you do not want to get the pointy end of the door you want to steer into the human that is opening the door. It's a much SOFTER stop and the injuries go to the person too self absorbed to look into a damn mirror.


This is how close the bike was when door opened.




This is the level of the bikers head to the pointy part of the door.



Always STAND when passing parked cars.

IMO Wrong she/he should have been driving CLOSER. If a car door opens you do not want to get the pointy end of the door you want to steer into the human that is opening the door. It's a much SOFTER stop and the injuries go to the person too self absorbed to look into a damn mirror.

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A local cyclist got the door prize while coming down hill.
He had time to decide launching toward the parked cars was better than the moving ones.
BANG, He flipped, landed on the hood on his ass, and slid to the ground, unhurt.
He got up and couldn't see the driver. WHAT?
The guy was unconscious, crumpled in the street. He'd cold-cocked him with his helmet.
The driver left in ambulance along with a ticket from the attending cop.

Zoot Katz said:

IMO Wrong she/he should have been driving CLOSER. If a car door opens you do not want to get the pointy end of the door you want to steer into the human that is opening the door. It's a much SOFTER stop and the injuries go to the person too self absorbed to look into a damn mirror.

Click to expand...

A local cyclist got the door prize while coming down hill.
He had time to decide launching toward the parked cars was better than the moving ones.
BANG, He flipped, landed on the hood on his ass, and slid to the ground, unhurt.
He got up and couldn't see the driver. WHAT?
The guy was unconscious, crumpled in the street. He'd cold-cocked him with his helmet.
The driver left in ambulance along with a ticket from the attending cop.

Click to expand...

Yikes!

I understand this is the lesser of the evils, but I also agree, where practical, take the lane, MANY of the bike lines where I ride are in the "dooring zone" especially down-town where this is most likely to happen.

I have seen some "experimental" lanes along PSU campus that are really nice, next to the sidewalk, but also giving room for passenger doors:

http://www.portlandonline.com/mayor/index.cfm?c=51353&a=277244





Obviously these kind of bike lanes won't fit most places, and are a bit impractical in how much space they take, but they sure are nice to ride in.

Lessss said:

the cyclist shouldn't have been that close to the car in the first place

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IMO Wrong she/he should have been driving CLOSER. If a car door opens you do not want to get the pointy end of the door you want to steer into the human that is opening the door. It's a much SOFTER stop and the injuries go to the person too self absorbed to look into a damn mirror.

Click to expand...

Man, that's the worst advise I have ever heard.
you cant be serious...

Ride as if the car doors are open ...
NEVER ride close to the doors..


in regarding to the video,
almost looks like the door was kicked open...

Scary stuff. Situational awareness seems to be key in any cycling condition.

Often times I take then entire lane. It seems people are more likely to pass you within a few inches if you are courteous and move as far right as possible. However when you ride right smack down the middle they have little choice but to pass appropriately, or hit you dead on.

The only time I have ever been hit was riding the sidewalk crossing a street. A car turning right decided to go while I was directly in front. Crazy old lady floored it right into me. I had minor injuries, and more than a few choice expletives for her.

There are just so many variables when commuting by bike. I try to always expect, and plan for, the very worst.