Road cyclists have a healthy fear of cars, but sometimes the danger
doesn't lie where we think.
One of the most common types of bike-car
accidents is cyclists getting "doored." You're pedaling along when suddenly
someone opens a car door in your path, and BOOM! You don't have time or space to
avoid hitting it.
It happened to Fran Benoit of Leicester about five
years ago on Mill Street in Worcester, by the Coes Pond beach. A woman in a
parked car "just didn't look and opened her door," he said. "The bike stopped
and I kept going. I went right over the top of the door."
Luckily,
Benoit, who was wearing a helmet, suffered only bumps and bruises. And no one
ran him over while he was sprawled in the road.
The front wheel of
his bike was trashed. The driver bought him a new wheel.
"It's a real
balancing act" to stay out of the "door zone" and also out of the way of moving
traffic, said Benoit, 56, who bikes about 5,000 miles a year, including
year-round commuting to Worcester.
Benoit's experience was fairly
typical, according to Andrew M. Fischer, a Boston lawyer who represents
bicyclists who have been in accidents. Fischer has never failed to collect a
settlement for a doored cyclist. One of the largest was about $30,000 for a
rider who went over the handlebars and broke his collarbone.
Getting
doored accounts for up to 8 percent of bike-car accidents, according to the
bikers' bible "Effective Cycling" by John Forester. A Metropolitan Area Planning
Council study of bike-car accidents in the Boston area (within Route 128) in
1979-80 put the figure at 5.3 percent, said Paul Schimek of Boston, a certified
Effective Cycling instructor.
The problem is that cyclists are afraid
a car will strike them from behind, so they ride too close to parked cars, said
John S. Allen of Waltham, author of "Street Smarts: Bicycling's Traffic Survival
Guide."
However, that fear is misplaced, Allen said. Straight-line,
rear-end collisions account for only about 0.5 percent of bike-car collisions.
Car doors are a greater threat.
The solution is simple: Ride at least
3 feet to the left of parked cars. If that doesn't leave cars room to pass, the
drivers will just have to wait, Allen writes in his guide "How to Ride in Boston
Traffic -- Or Anywhere."
Look in each parked car to see if it's
empty, advises Dave Glowacz in his book "Urban Bikers' Tricks & Tips." Use
your rear-view mirror and glance over your shoulder to keep track of what's
behind you. Claim the lane if you must.
You are more visible and more
predictable if you ride in a straight line; don't weave in and out between
parked cars. If you need to take the lane, look over your shoulder, signal, and
get cooperation from the driver behind you as you move away from the shoulder,
Allen advises.
"You have a perfect legal right to the space you need
to be safe," Allen writes. "Most drivers will respect this right. Some may honk
their horns; then you know they've seen you."
"Losing the lurking
fear of being struck from behind is the single most liberating moment in a
bicyclist's career except for the moment of learning to steer and balance,"
Allen said.
Barbara Jacobs of Waltham has been doored twice on her
12-mile bike commute to Boston. "You're forced into it because of traffic," she
said. Also, she said, headrests and tinted windows make it hard to tell if a
parked car is empty.
The first time Jacobs was doored, in 1993 on
Massachusetts Avenue in Arlington, her bike was totaled. The second time, last
September on Belmont Avenue in Cambridge, she had to get 14 stitches in her
cheek. Both times, the motorists' insurance covered her costs without argument.
Although no one claimed the accidents were the cyclist's fault -- an
argument that lawyer Fischer does hear from auto insurance claims adjusters --
Jacobs has changed her riding style. "Now I'll take more of my space," she said.
If traffic is slow or stopped, a cyclist may find himself threading
the needle between cars on his left and parked cars on his right. Getting doored
by someone opening a passenger-side door is "not as unusual as you'd think,"
Fischer said.
Last fall in Brookfield, cyclist Ken Reed of Charlton
tried to pass on the right of a police car that had stopped in the travel lane.
A front-seat passenger in the cruiser opened her door, and Reed slammed into it.
A piece of the door gashed his neck, slicing his esophagus. He was in the
hospital for a few days, and his bike was destroyed. An insurance claim is
pending.
Massachusetts law specifically allows bicyclists to pass on
the right of slower or stopped cars, Fischer said, and that has helped him win
settlements for doored riders. He doesn't like to trumpet that right, though,
because cyclists should exercise it with caution. Although it is sometimes
imprudent for cyclists to pass on the right, he said, he doesn't want cyclists
to lose the right.
No matter which side of the car the opened door is
on, Fischer said, in about 40 states the law puts the presumption of fault on
the motorist. However, Massachusetts has not adopted that provision of the
Uniform Vehicle Code. Bike advocates have lobbied unsuccessfully for the
Massachusetts Legislature to adopt the car door rule, which simply says: "No
person shall open the door of a motor vehicle on the side available to moving
traffic unless and until it is reasonably safe to do so."
The rule,
which does not specifically mention bikes, is not about bicycling, Fischer said.
It's about people in automobiles being responsible for the machinery they're
operating.
"It is nice to have the law on your side if you are
doored, but better not to get doored at all," cycling instructor Schimek said.
"No matter what the rule is ... cyclists should always ride a door's width away
from parked cars."