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news
Near Miss of the Day 219: Near-dooring shows need for Dutch Reach
It wasn’t long after we published our story this morning on Transport for Greater Manchester urging car occupants to use the Dutch Reach technique – which encourages people to look over their shoulder to check for approaching cyclists before opening the door – before an email arrived with a video clip showing why it is so badly needed.
It was sent in by road.cc reader James who was almost the victim of a dooring on Deansgate in Manchester city centre last December.
Luckily, he managed to take evasive action and was on his way, with his shout of “Dickhead!” ringing in the ears of the driver who had opened the car door in his path.
> Near Miss of the Day turns 100 - Why do we do the feature and what have we learnt from it?
Over the years road.cc has reported on literally hundreds of close passes and near misses involving badly driven vehicles from every corner of the country – so many, in fact, that we’ve decided to turn the phenomenon into a regular feature on the site. One day hopefully we will run out of close passes and near misses to report on, but until that happy day arrives, Near Miss of the Day will keep rolling on.
If you’ve caught on camera a close encounter of the uncomfortable kind with another road user that you’d like to share with the wider cycling community please send it to us at info [at] road.cc or send us a message via the road.cc Facebook page.
If the video is on YouTube, please send us a link, if not we can add any footage you supply to our YouTube channel as an unlisted video (so it won't show up on searches).
Please also let us know whether you contacted the police and if so what their reaction was, as well as the reaction of the vehicle operator if it was a bus, lorry or van with company markings etc.
> What to do if you capture a near miss or close pass (or worse) on camera while cycling
Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.
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8 comments
Bags of room on the other side of traffic, that's where I'd have been. All the same, the driver should have checked before opening.
Whoops!
Accidentally played this in a quite office with the loud speakers on.
A bit too fast between cars in my opinion.
Why would you cycle that close to parked car ?
Probably something to do with the queue of traffic to the right...
Which means the action wasn't a wise one as there was insufficient space, so alternative action was required.
So ride to the right of that, down the middle of the road. Drivers are also less likely to turn right across you without looking than they are to turn left, given they know they’ll be crossing a lane so are more likely to do a proper job of slowing down, looking, indicating...
All very nice in theory, but in practice most cyclists do stick to the left of queuing traffic in situations like this. The main reason (in my experience) is simply that generally cyclists are on the left anyway, so simply carrying on in that position is easiest.
As you're approaching the back of a queue of traffic, it can be hard to move across to the right if there are cars alongside, or, once you hit the line of traffic, it is a slow and awkward manoeuvre to get between the cars and out the other side.
Depending on the road layout and the cause of the queue, it can also be difficult and intimidating to move back over to the left again (or even into primary position) once traffic starts moving - you can end up 'stranded' in the middle of the road with traffic passing you at speed on both sides.
The section of road in the video looks wide enough, but in other situations - if the road narrows later, or there are cars parked on both sides - then passing on the right can bring you close to oncoming traffic, which can be intimidating.
Obviously riding to the right eliminates (or at least greatly reduces) the chance of dooring, but if there is a decent amount of space to the left I can absolutely understand why most people - especially slower or less confident cyclists - would choose to stay there, and I don't think victim blaming helps.