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Still taken from @AllLondonBoy videoVideo: Doored cyclist falls in path of black cab
A recent video posted to Twitter by a London black cab driver captures the moment when a cyclist is doored, causing him to veer and fall in the path of the taxi. The London Evening Standard reports that the incident took place on a stretch of Cycle Superhighway 2 along Mile End Road.
The cyclist is riding in the cycle lane, but must move towards the outside of it as he approaches a long row of parked cars. As he passes one car, the door opens. He veers, loses control and falls in the road with the black cab stopping seemingly inches from him.
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The driver subsequently wrote on Twitter that the cyclist had in fact been hit by the door, but while he was left with a few cuts, he was otherwise okay.
“I think they should make it an offence for anyone hit cyclist with door,” he wrote. “That way everyone would check before opening.”
The taxi driver took the details of the person who opened the car door and says they will be paying for any damage. For his part, the cyclist seemed grateful he wasn’t run over. "Just spoke to cyclist, he's nice n well. Man wants to take me out for a drink now."
The taxi driver also pointed out how much worse the incident could have been had he been driving a bus or a truck. In 2012, a Surrey motorist was acquitted of manslaughter after allegedly opening his car door in the path of a cyclist without looking, causing him to be killed under the wheels of a bus.
This section of CS2 is earmarked for improvements. Work is being carried out to provide segregated cycle lanes along the A11 between Aldgate and Bow with work on Mile End Road due to be complete by April 2016.
Alex has written for more cricket publications than the rest of the road.cc team combined. Despite the apparent evidence of this picture, he doesn't especially like cake.
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63 comments
The driver or passenger should be prosecuted, for careless driving or GBH, to try and prevent future collisions.
All cyclists should have try to avoid this potential hazard by being at least 1 metre away from all vehicle doors irrespective of any road markings, even more for larger vehicles, because collision with an open vehicle door could cause serious, even permanent, injury, other costs, or worse death; punishment after the event is unlikely to change this!
Allowing car parking next to a cycle lane so that car doors can be opened into it and cars have to cross it is mind blowing negligence
, WTF were the road planners thinking!
Why no discussion of the infrastructure? Why is there parking directly next to a cycle superhighway with no dooring zone?
A full investigation looks at all the factors, not just immediate ones.
And this is an actual incident that requires a full investigation. Zero incidents on building sites, why not on roads?
^^^^^ Wot he said. Has the c**t who opened their car door been prosecuted yet? If not, why not?
There was only one cause of the his incident and it was the driver of the car who opened the door without looking. Period. It was lucky the cyclist wasn't seriously injured or killed. The taxi driver deserves special praise for not running over the cyclist who fell into his path otherwise we could have been reading about another senseless cycling fatality.
Quote" I think they should make it an offence for anyone hit cyclist with door,” he wrote. “That way everyone would check before opening.”
It is an offence
Dooring as an offence
Rule 239 of the Highway Code states that motorists “MUST ensure you do not hit anyone when you open your door. Check for Cyclists or other traffic.” The Highway Code serves as guidance only, and non compliance with a rule of the Highway Code is not an offence. However, s.42 of the Road Traffic Act 1988 makes it an offence to open “any door of a vehicle on a road so as to injure or endanger any person.”
Is there a competition to see who can copy the most text from previous comments? The first commenter whose post is long enough to be the correct distance to ride from parked cars wins a prize.
I don't think you can call this bad cycling; you can call it inexperienced cycling. The influx of new cyclists for both commuting and leisure is to be encouraged. Many have experience of driving but not of cycling and don't recognise the risks. When I ride with some of my friends who are new to cycling I end up more knackered from shouting "move out", when we are passing parked cars, than I do from riding the bike!
These riders are not idiots; many have been driving for years and have basic good road sense, just not from the perspective of an experienced cyclist.
It should be remembered it is incumbent on the motorist to ensure it is safe to open the door.
I am not a Bikeability instructor but... IMO best practice from the cyclist would have been:
1. Spot the line of parked cars and recognised them as a hazard (risk from being doored/risk of a close pass from an overtaking vehicle) much earlier... 25 meters +
2. Look over the right shoulder to check no traffic close behind and pulled into the middle of the main lane (well outside the door zone + preventing a close pass from any passing traffic), signalling if possible.
IMO he pulled out very late, one reason why the taxi was so close. He also didn't look over his shoulder before moving, otherwise he'd have seen the taxi was v close behind.
The taxi driver did well to stop but if driver training was better he'd have anticipated that the cyclist would have to move out past the cars and past the door zone and would've been further back. However, I've not been able to ask him exactly what he did so this may not be fair criticism!
Good to see most of the comments on Evening Standard supporting the cyclist and praising the taxi driver - rather than the usual anti-cyclist idiocy. IMO the more of these videos the better, it serves as far better education than trying to talk to drivers in the heat of the moment
The offending door opener might have seen him if he was wearing brightly coloured clothing like dayglo instead of black. We need to take some responsibility as cyclists to see and be seen.
You missed the "tongue in cheek" smiley of the end of this. Some people might actually think you're serious, which, of course, you're not, are you? Because that would be a stupid thing to really mean.
Has anyone noticed right at the end of the video there is another cyclist that has just seen this incident who is riding even closer to the doors in the bus lane.
BTW I think well done to the Taxi Driver for staying with the gut and making sure he was OK.
Wouldn't have happened if he'd had his lights switched on.
I agree with an earlier comment and must say the taxi guy deserves to be told he did well - good to see -
I have been doored a couple of times - ride a door away if there is space but there is not always space - this cyclist would have likely have been listening to the taxi approach and been reluctant to get too far out so I would not be too quick to blame him for being close...
riding in town is one big compromise - always...
Maybe he was. Maybe he made the decision to ride close to the left in otder to avoid a close pass by a road raging driver?
Anyway, while we are arguing amongst ourselves there's a whole world of crap driving out there that we should be addressing.
#DivideAndConquer
It was bad cycling because he was too close and got doored. Cyclists aren't immune to criticism, but every time someone on here dares to suggest a cyclist wasn't perfect it's dubbed as "victim blaming".
The cyclist was too close to the car. He should have shoulder-checked and moved to a stronger position earlier. In this video he didn't shoulder-check once despite significantly changing lane position.
The motorist should not have opened the door without checking. That's really stupid also.
The cycling infrastructure is silly.
This video shows a cocktail of stupidity - some more stupid than others. But I hope the cyclist learns that you *do* get idiot motorists that open doors so steers clear in future.
There's a lot of lessons to be learnt here, the cyclist would do well to learn his.
The problem with that rationale is that there's nothing illegal about riding close to parked cars and everything illegal about dooring other road users. So whether it's "bad" cycling is based on some arbitrary metric other than the actual law. You could just as well say that cyclists who are hit by cars weren't riding perfectly because if they had been then they wouldn't have been hit by the car for whatever arbitrary reason you care to choose.
Exactly. How long before we get blamed for being obscured by the sun?
Unfortunately already happened
http://www.readingcyclingclub.com/node/321
Silly argument. Just because something is legal, doesn't mean it's sensible. The Highway Code even states to not go close to car doors - I don't think that's an arbitrary reason. Apart from making it illegal (which would be entirely unworkable, stupid and no doubt deemed as a ploy to vilify cyclists) how much more hand-holding do you need?
Where? Which rule?
AFAIK contributory negligence will be considered of the person who hit the door had sufficient time to react. I don't know of any rule that specifically warns against going too close.
The IAM teaches defensive driving, that is, how to anticipate and avoid other people's mistakes. This is (at least in motoring) considered to be advanced technique and not required knowledge for a drivers license, as the name IAM implies. If it's not a requirement for anyone who is in charge of a ton of self propelled metal, why should a cyclist be blamed for not anticipating others mistakes?
Higway code
Guidance not law, but it is pretty clear.
Dooring as an offence
Rule 239 of the Highway Code states that motorists “MUST ensure you do not hit anyone when you open your door. Check for Cyclists or other traffic.” The Highway Code serves as guidance only, and non compliance with a rule of the Highway Code is not an offence. However, s.42 of the Road Traffic Act 1988 makes it an offence to open “any door of a vehicle on a road so as to injure or endanger any person.”
I guess the door opener won't be getting an £829 fine for it.
I'm pretty sure it looks like he kicks his own door open which would indicate that he's leaning to the passenger side to pick something up before getting out - defo not checking first.
Also, that driver needs a good kicking for having one of them gay man purses strung across his chest.
What, you mean a musette?
To me, this video shows everyone doing the very natural human thing of lazily assuming everything will happen as usual, and not being ready for the worst eventuality.
The cyclist assumes no car doors will open (they very rarely do) and rides within a door's width of the cars.
The driver who's just parked assumes there's no cyclist (there usually isn't) and opens his door.
The taxi driver assumes the cyclist will continue cycling with more or less the same speed and direction (they usually do) and drives a little too close for comfort (IMO). Very fortunately for all concerned, he did at least react sufficiently quickly to (just) avoid running over the bike rider.
This incident vividly illustrates that in an environment as dangerous as the public road, natural human instincts lead to potentially fatal behaviour. Our tendency to make the inductive leap from experience to generalisation is doubtless one of the great contributors to human achievement, and, indeed, it could be argued that the world would be incomprehensible without it, but in this situation it almost got someone killed. In such circumstances, it would be wise to adopt a much stronger than usual sense of paranoia.
ITV London report and this is not only a lie but a deliberate story to blame the cyclist
TV News London @itvlondon 3h3 hours ago
Terrifying moment cyclist swerves in front of a cab caught on camera http://www.itv.com/news/london/2015-08-05/terrifying-moment-cyclist-swer... …
Christ's Sake, anyone with a pair of eyes can see he hits the door first. Twats.
Yeah, what amazed me about that report (and I think it was the blogger Bez who pointed this out first on twitter, but it struck me also) was the way it referred to 'the car that opened its door'.
I don't know what all the fuss is about these google self-driving cars. It seems we already have robocars on our roads. They open their own doors, apparently, with no human input.
I guess the driver wasn't able to over-ride its Artificial Intelligence in time.
We should probably rethink the whole self-driving car thing, given how our roads seem to be full of these killer autonomous robo-cars - mounting the pavement, flipping themselves over, driving into buildings - judging by the news reports in most of the media.
Full sentence reads "the driver of the car that opened its door"
Could be read as " the driver (of the car) that opened its door." But more likely not. However I am more concerned by the " forced to swerve" line which suggests evasive action when it can clearly be seen that the door impacts the cyclist as he passes, knocking him into the path of the taxi. Cyclist does well to stay long enough for the taxi to stop.
Being doored hurts.
Seconded.
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