Cyclists already know how dangerous it is to share the road with motor vehicle drivers. Now, it is important for drivers to understand the same.
It starts by having an awareness of all of the ways that drivers can specifically hurt cyclists. This includes dooring incidents.
Injuries cyclists face from dooring
Momentum Mag discusses dooring incidents as an issue that plagues many spaces where cars and bikes share space. What is dooring? This involves a person in a parked car opening the car door into the path of a cyclist.
This may not sound like a big deal, but the impact of a cyclist into a car door can actually do a lot of damage. Cyclists have broken bones, suffered from concussions, cut themselves on broken glass and even got launched over the car door itself due to the speed at which they strike it.
It is also possible for these cyclists to end up falling or swerving into the road either because they got hit by the door, or because they reflexively tried to avoid it. Other cars may not have the time to react to this and could end up hitting the cyclist. Needless to say, this could cause a huge amount of damage.
Reducing dooring incidents
In order to reduce the number of dooring incidents, drivers should take care to park as far away from bike lanes as possible, or avoid them entirely when this is an option. More importantly, they should always check both sides to make sure a cyclist is not approaching. This simple step could end dooring incidents entirely if every single driver participated.