Cyclist Death Focuses Attention On Dooring
A tragic death of a local bicycle rider is beginning to focus some attention on dooring accidents.
Dooring is what its called when a driver of a parked motor vehicle inadvertently opens their car door into an oncoming bike rider–many times with injurious results.
One young attorney biking to work last Friday swerved to avoid a door opening on Wells St. and ended up as a fatal statistic when an oncoming truck struck him. This is the fifth bicyclist traffic death this year according to GridChicago’s Steven Vance.
WBEZ is reporting many people in the biking community are clamoring for more protected bike lanes to reduce future horrible dooring incidents.
Cyclists contend the protected bike lanes are not adjacent to rows of parked cars, like traditional bike lanes. Rather, protected bike lanes are adjacent to the curb and vehicles park further toward the center of the traffic lane.
WBEZ created a map documenting the 577 dooring incidents which have occurred over the past four years.
Not surprisingly, the northside of the city, where the majority of people using bikes for transportation live and work, is where most of the incidents occur. Looking closer, Milwaukee Ave. and Clark St. the two major city biking corridors is where many dooring accidents happen.
Here’s WBEZ’s very compelling dooring map and Steven Vance’s photos and coverage of the fatal accident at GridChicago.com, “Fatality Tracker: Cyclist avoids dooring and falls under wheels of semi truck.”
Wbez is not telling the whole story. Many ardent cyclists (the chain link) are using this to demand the removal of all bike lanes. The most hard core insist that bikes be treated as a full blown member of the road user community and claim that bike lanes ghettoize bike.
The most hard core cycling zealots don’t want to share the road. They want the ENTIRE road. Ghettoizing cars is their agenda.
I agree with Pete. I can’t tell you how many times that I’ve been cutoff by bikers while in my car and then they give me a dirty look. I’ve seen some cutoff police cars. They want the road, not to share it. Additionally, our roads weren’t originally built to handle cars, buses, trucks, and bikers.
David,
What are your thoughts on the subject of Protected Lanes vs. Standard Lanes vs. No Lanes?
It’s a hard question. I hate “traditional” lanes on busy streets. The bad drivers use them as special passing lanes. Cars cut into the, to park. They disappear at bad times. On not so busy streets, they are finr but unnecessary. Protected lanes? I have little experience with them and they certainly tick off some drivers. And they do place bicycles at spots where they are unexpcted. But they certainly reduce fatalities from dooring. I kind of like the D C. Concept where they run down the middle of the street…. Essentially where streetcars run in Europe. Mostly I support developing routes on he side streets.. Perhaps with streets that have been cull de sac’d with space for bicycles to go through
My wife doored a biker with the right door. We were waiting at a red light and a biker decided to run the red light at the same time my wife decided the exit the car (passenger side) onto the crosswalk. A biker in a “protected” lane could still be doored with the right door.
David,
Your comments are very thought provoking. But I think you made me even less confident than before that there’s an easy solution to this issue.
vb says:
My wife doored a biker with the right door. We were waiting at a red light and a biker decided to run the red light at the same time my wife decided the exit the car (passenger side) onto the crosswalk. A biker in a “protected” lane could still be doored with the right door.
My comment:
Yes. That is true. A biker could be doored in a protective lane BUT
1. They would not be doored INTO a truck, bus or car. Often the fatalities and very serious injuries are not directly caused by the dooring. They are caused either by the bicycle avoiding the dooring and swerving into the other vehicle or by being knocked into the other vehicle.
2. The dooring zone is far less of a problem. In a protected lane the bicycle can ride “out” of the dooring zone by “hugging” the curb. In a “traditional lane” the bicycle has to hug the white line next to traffic.
Just being doored can really screw you up. I was out of commission for nearly three months when Domino’s got me on Clark Street. But it has a far lower chance of killing you.
I know that your story is that the Bicycle was “running the red light”? Isn’t it also possible that they were properly pulling up to position themselves to avoid being “right hooked” (which actually kills as many as dooring) by cars that turn right without looking? And even if they were “running the red light” that does not give the driver the absolute right to “punish” the miscreant.
From your description, it sounds like you were at least partially at fault in that your wife opened the door when the car was not that close to the curb and without looking. Your car could not have been that close to the curb if a bicycle could fit between it and the curb while moving at speed. Handlebars (alone) take up several feet.
The PTG wrote:
Your comments are very thought provoking. But I think you made me even less confident than before that there’s an easy solution to this issue.
My comment:
Lots of “easy” solutions — Ban Bicycles, Ban Cars, and so forth. Not many good solutions.
One of the major problems is that Chicago has an “old” grid and hasn’t had a “grid overhauling” event since the Great Fire. In contrast, much of Europe (Germany in particular) got a chance to “re-grid” in the late 1940′s when the existing grid, uh, disappeared. Its much easier to put together Bikes and Cars when you don’t have Chicago Street limitations. For example, you essentially run a third set of “lanes” which consist of two way bike only isolated lanes. This simply can’t be done on the existing grid except by, for example, taking out Ashland or Western or Irving. And that’s simply a non-starter.
The other solution, that of turning for example, Berteau into a bicycle-only two way street also doesn’t work simply because of opposition by the people who live on the street. (Ironically, most of them, would ultimately find that it was vastly preferable… Imagine having a front yard which does not have cars chugging by throwing out fumes…)
Hitting an open car door at 25mph can very well cause serious injury to a bicyclist.
Anyway Chicago is no place for bike lanes. I think I’ve covered my objections on TEM before. The wide curb lane is ideal, it worked well before the bike lanes got painted. Designed by people who have no clue about vehicular bicycling.
A bike lane is a ghetto. Drivers think the bicyclist is confined to that space. The wide curb lane does not create this perception. Bicyclists are more free to choose a safe location in the lane based on traffic and parked vehicle conditions.
There are roads in Chicago that were perfectly fine for me to ride before a bike lane got painted. Never a word from anyone, no brush passing, everything went fine for me and the motorists I encountered. Paint a bike lane…. I ride in the exact same location. Now I am being brush passed. Why? because I am on the left edge of the bike lane to avoid getting doored. It was fine before the damn stripe was painted but after now this painted line is supposed to protect me. Absurd.
Oh, and if you can’t keep up with motorized traffic as well as a slower driver does on most Chicago streets you aren’t “hard core” IMO. Keeping up comes in at a much lower level than ‘hard core’ all-season-all-weather types as I see it. I realize some people are militant politically and I dislike their attitude and desires as well. They too are control freaks, just in a different direction. But physically speed wise, Chicago city streets aren’t really that fast for cars. Exceptions are everywhere, but on the bulk of streets cars are going to average 25mph or less.
Ultimately bike lanes are for people who don’t know what they are doing and want an illusion of safety.
“Cyclists contend the protected bike lanes are not adjacent to rows of parked cars, like traditional bike lanes. Rather, protected bike lanes are adjacent to the curb and vehicles park further toward the center of the traffic lane.”
Just noticed that. What idiocy. They keep making things worse. More and more complexity. adding real danger because of an irrational fear of being hit from behind.
One thing that protected lanes do well is reduce dooring. All cars have one person who gets out on the left side. Only cars with passengers have cars with a second or third person that gets out on the right side. Further, in a protected lane, the smart rider is close to the curb (and out of the door zone for just about all cars) and has no real danger of brush passes.
That being said, claims that bicyclists must (or even can) ride 25 MPH are pure nonsense. On level ground the Tour de France riders barely exceed 25 mph. A real good amateur cyclist is going to be at the 18 MPH range (with certainly the ability to burst at a higher speed, but that’s for a very limited period of time and distance). And that’s a large part of the problem. Cars have improved such that most drivers feel “safe” driving much faster than the posted 25 MPH speed limit. They do not perceive the risk to themselves or the other users of the road. Thus we often have a 2 to 1 speed advantage (or more) for cars over bicycles. And that’s a big part of the problem. The “80th percentile rule” doesn’t work anymore because cars are too safe. We are going to have to force compliance with 25 mph by brute force.
The speed limit in Chicago (unless otherwise posted) is 30 miles per hour. Whether 25 or 30 miles per hour, an accident between a bike and a car is a potential disaster for the cyclist. So even if every driver in Chicago drove 5 miles under the speed limit, that wouldn’t appreciably reduce the danger of injury from a bike versus car collision.
Myabe the answer is to keep bikes and cars apart. Perhaps designating the right hand curb lane on certain streets as no parking (at least during commuting hours) might be an answer. As other posters have noted, bike lanes (painted or protected) can create a false sense of security for bikers, and can create exactly the sort of car traffic congestion they were supposed to alleviate.
Maybe it’s me, but riding a bike in the city seems way to dangerous from a cost / benefit position. I believe the man that was killed on his way to work was a 32 year old attorney. Instead, he could have taken the brown line to the pink line or a bus for $86 a month. Life is too precious to risk it in this crazy city.
Keeping a lane clear solves one of the problems. Dooring. What it does not solve are right hooks (cars turning in front of Bicycles) (and which kill a bunch of Cyclists each year) and cars that use the “empty” lane for passing. That’s the biggest problem. The aggressive drivers that blatantly ignore the traffic laws and pass on the right or drive right up the bike lanes because they are “empty” (ie no car). Cars driving 25 MPH or even 30 MPH would, actually, reduce the danger quite a bit. Look at the charts for stopping distances. At 20 MPH its 40 feet, at 30 MPH its 75 feet and at 40 MPH its 120 feet. And most drivers in Chicago are well over the 30 MPH speed limit.
David,
Tour de France riders do 35mph on flat ground. They can cruise at 28mph.
I do 25mph regularly. And I am not even in the shape I used to be. 18 is just an ordinary cruising speed. “hard core” bicyclists should be doing a lot better than I can.
I have personally kept up with automotive traffic for blocks on end on city streets like Michigan Avenue, 31st street, Irving park road and countless others. In the loop I have entered and taken the left lane to pass slower traffic, which was motorized, while still being delayed myself by the motorized traffic immediately in front of me. I may not be able to do it at the moment but I’ve done it in the past many times.
This is not boast. I am just a decent vehicular bicyclist. I am not ‘hard core’. I very rarely ride when the temp drops below ~55F.
The thing is city driving isn’t as fast as you think it is. Over a good 5 or 6 miles the bicyclist, like me, one who doesn’t even gutter pass is only a seconds to a minute behind. I used to have a suburban commute of just under 6 miles. I took a slightly different route bicycling vs. driving. There were numerous traffic control devices either way. The difference between bicycling and driving? about 1 minute. Yes. One minute. Now if I gutter passed and blew stop signs and red lights I would have done better by bicycling.
Eventually automotive traffic will get to place where it can get up to speed and lose a bicyclist, but with a stop watch it doesn’t amount to much.
Top gear did an ‘experiment’ in their own way in London. Hammond by bicycle. Clarkson by boat, May by car, and The Stig by transit. Hammond won, Clarkson second, Stig Third, May last. ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CkOzNK4l8KY )
Driving really isn’t that fast when there is a traffic control device every half mile or less plus other drivers. It averages about 17mph, which is about what I averaged bicycle commuting.
Riding to the right of parked cars is pure idiocy. It’s blocked from vision and creates intersection complexity an order of magnitude greater than a regular bike lane does which is in itself an order of magnitude greater than a wide curb lane.
If you ride that fast on flat you should be a professional bike racer. I on’t make this stuff up. Here is an la time article that supports my position. http://articles.latimes.com/2011/jul/21/news/la-heb-tour-de-france-20110721
I ride a lot. 20 mph on flat is very fast for anyone.
And I agree about slow traffic. I commute 12 miles by bike. It’s about 5 minutes slower than driving on a normal day.
B,
I appreciate the excellent thoughts on this. Very much appreciate the insight.
I probably could have been a bicycle racer when I was in my teens if such thing were considered a sport where and when I grew up. However that isn’t really here nor there as that is long past.
The article states what I did, average speed of 17-18, racers 10mph faster. Mountains are irrelevant to NE Illinois. What the article neglects I think is the stopping regular bicyclists have to do that racers don’t. And that’s the killer of average speed. For a non-racer bicyclist to average 17 mph he has to get into the 20s regularly and that is what I referring to. (the racer of course punches into the 30s when he has to)
David, if you’re doing that much riding I think you may be faster than you think you are. A five minute penalty over 12 miles isn’t slouching… unless you’re running signals or something.
B wrote:
David, if you’re doing that much riding I think you may be faster than you think you are. A five minute penalty over 12 miles isn’t slouching… unless you’re running signals or something.
My comment:
Nope. I carefully plotted out the Bicycle Route. 14 lights, 30 stop signs. The primary basis for the difference is not the speed of the bicycling, its the slow speed of the driving and the fact that Bicycles can take “better routes”. (The NCT, for example, cuts off a bunch of lights and stop signs, Bryn Mawr from the NCT to Elston cuts off a bunch of lights and stop signs.)