This evening, while riding home from work, I was involved in my first ever bike vs. car door incident. As I was approaching a red light, a driver decided it would be a great idea to open his door without looking. I had maybe 1 second to react, swerved left, and was thrown from my bike as it bounced off another car. If I hadn’t been able to react quickly enough, I would have crashed square into his open door at about 20km/h. I pictured myself being thrown onto the trunk of the taxi cab in the next lane, and was trying to pick my spot on the trunk to minimize damage to me. Thankfully, I was somehow able to stop before hitting the cab (have I ever mentioned how much I LOVE disk brakes?) and wound up just being thrown to the ground as I hit the cab. Thankfully all traffic was stopped, because it was at a red light. Who opens their door at a red light?
Getting up, I shared some pleasantries with the driver (a profound “WHAT THE *ahem* ARE YOU DOING? *jebus* *cripes*!”) I pulled the bike off to the sidewalk to inspect the damage, and everything looked OK. I thanked the driver for his care and attention, and continued riding home.
This incident brought home three things for me.
- assume every car on the road is full of braindead cretins hellbent on your destruction.
- assume every car on the road is about to open its doors.
- claim the lane. don’t ride so far to the right that an open door will kill you.
For the rest of the ride home, I tried to remember to claim the lane. It’s harder than it sounds. Riding in the lane, rather than along the edge. It’s intimidating, picturing traffic piling up behind. I was able to keep pretty close to traffic speeds, so that wasn’t a problem (except on a couple of uphill stretches). But, I’m going to keep claiming the lane.
I stopped a few km later to inspect the bike. There was no real damage, except for a chunk smashed off the rear fender from when it bounced off a car. Nothing fatal, but I’ll want to fill the gap so when riding in rain I don’t get a rooster tail.
Things could have ended so much differently. If I had failed to react, or if I’d been only a few mm to the right, I’d have had at the least a smashed right hand. At the worst, I’d have taken the full impact on his door with my head, or bounced off the taxi.
Update: It didn’t dawn on me until later that evening, but of the dozen or so cars stopped at the red light when I got doored, not a single person got out to see if I was OK. The driver that doored me asked “are you ok?” as he closed his door, but not a single person got out. Are people so insulated in their cars that they just don’t care? Did it all happen so quickly that they didn’t have a chance to snap out of their commuter comas in order to react?
Not a single person. This city can kiss me where I don’t have a tan.
Some people look at people not in cars as simply an annoyance. Sorry to hear about it, but glad you’re okay! It’s just one of those, what can you do other than make sure you’re not a similar type of asshole when the same thing happens when you’re around.
I’m so glad to hear you and The Bike are okay– very fortunate.
When I rode in traffic it was pretty much with a full expectation that every driver does not see me, ever car in my lane would turn sharply right in front of me. I gace up the road bike after a week where two incident of cars doing that, one a pullout where I took a fly across the hood of the car (w/o the bike), and decided to go to a mountain bike on trails and paths out o traffic, That’s probably not an option everywhere.
Your approach is sane to definitely be seen. I totally agree that there is an abundance of bad driver, distracted driver, stupid I Bought My License at Walmart driver, but I always acknowledged from my own driving experience that it can be hard to see all bicyclists as their visibility profile can be really low in certain place. I had one pitch on my old ride that wa a bridge over a freeway exit, and I always cursed the drivers puling out for right turn on red across my path — and then I drove it and saw how little visibility drivers had as in the mornings it wa direct into sunlight and the guard rail really obscured all viewage to the drivers left– so I changed my approach to that intersection to expect them not to see me,
I totally agree about the pathetic case that no one in a car stops to help. I had one time where I came around a corner too fast and the road was wet from a sprinkler, and my rear wheel slipped out from under me, and I went down with some skids. I lay there stunned about a minute or two (there was no damage(, but totally remember cars going past me on the ground, can even see their faces as they look, slow down, but dont stop.
Hope you did not have the Big Camera when you went down 😉
thanks. I do know that I have a right to the road, and that I pay my fair share – but it seems like the vast majority of drivers think of bikes as just obstacles placed there by people who don’t have the means to drive. I have a car. It’s pretty nice. I leave it at home, thank you.
I’d really love to see gas hit $5/L ($20/gal) and see how smug the drivers are then…
And I did have the XT in my panier – but it survived unscathed 🙂
Where was the door-opening car? Were you lane splitting?(not allowed where I live) From your description, sounds like it was parked on the right and the driver was getting out. How/why wouldn’t the driver look first? If not worried about bikes, wouldn’t the fool driver opening the door at least be worried about getting hit by a car? Perhaps natural selection will solve the problem for us bike riders if the driver keeps it up.
I’m with you on owning the lane. When I ride through the downtown area of my home, I get in the center of three one-way lanes and sit tall in the saddle, any car that come alongside in the outside lanes gets the stare-down until they acknowledge my presence. The road is a slight downhill, so keeping up with the flow is no prob and I’m faster than the cars when getting out of the blocks after a stop at a light. I do the same thing on shoulder-less hunks of road like bridges. Own the lane.
Hey I just read your taking the lane comments. True, true, true – after 25 years of bike commuting in Vancouver it’s one of the top lessons I’ve learned. Claim your space in the lane. The other top lesson; assume every driver is blind and is out to get you; sometimes this adage saves your life, other times you are pleasantly suprised as drivers see you, give you the right of way, stop at the stop sign, don’t cut you off turning left…..and on and on. In turn I cede the right of way to cars when I am supposed to and am often waved back at -some drivers are great – just don’t assume they are.
Back to the claim your space in the lane. A few years ago in Victoria there was a test case in the courts about this. A cyclist was ticketed for being too far in the lane of traffic, not squished up against the parked cars. He fought the ticket and won. The judge said that a cyclist has the right to take as much room as they need to be safe.
Anyway ride free and be safe. I always take my bike with me when I visit my Mom in Calgary. She lives one house lot away from the bike bath in Inglewood, near the Zoo. See you on the trails. I also liked your reviw of the Dew FS, I’ve been looking at getting one.
In the words of Tom Bombadil, “be bold, but wary, keep up your merry hearts and ride to meet your fortune”