Carelessly opened car doors could result in fines

[The Straight Story]

Carelessly opened car doors could result in fines


MADISON, Wis. - Madison and state officials want to make it illegal for someone to open a car door into oncoming traffic without checking to make sure it's safe.

The measures are designed to protect bicyclists from "getting doored."

Bicyclist Linda Willsey suffered multiple contusions and fractured vertebra when she crashed into a door on a parked car last summer in Madison.

She also received a $10 citation for violating a state law requiring cyclists to ride 3 feet from parked or standing vehicles. The city attorney later dropped the charge.

Democratic Sen. Fred Risser of Madison and others have introduced a bill to wipe out the 3-foot rule and fine motorists who don't make sure the way is clear before opening doors.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-ap-wi-cardoorlaw,0,5815514.story

[AngryAmish]

1. Good law - we have the same one in chicago

[pnutbutr]

2. hooray for personal responsibility

:rofl:

[Winterblues]

7. Right , Force that bicycle out into the street further.

Maybe should make it four feet from any parked car in case the driver steps out. :crazy:

[cliffordu]

9. What's any of this got to do with personal responsibility?

I got doored while riding in the bike lane by an ass in a van I couldn't see....

He's lucky I couldn't get up.

[petronius]

13. This is about personal respnsibility - requiring motorists to be responsible for

where they swing their car doors. Of course, if you meant that this law shouldn't be necessary because drivers should look around and always be aware of their surroundings, and cyclists should watch where they're going, just out of common sense and courtesy, then I agree with you...

[Ikonoklast]

14. No different than pulling out in front of another vehicle without looking

It would be the fault of the vehicle operator merging into a moving lane of traffic.

Same reasoning is used that makes it illegal for me to throw objects into a lane of traffic.


And what does 'personal responsibility' have to do with it, except that you've always defended any right-wing mantra posted on this site?

[pnutbutr]

17. yes

drivers and bicyclists should be aware of what's going on around them. It's called personal responsibility. And FYI, no I haven't always defended right wing mantra.

In my opinion no legislation is necessary here. Get rid of the 3 ft. law and don't create a new law that will be near impossible to enforce and only serve to assume guilt on one party over the other.

[Ikonoklast]

18. Fine . Then we'll just clog the courts with civil suits over damages

because there are no statutes delineating responsible parties pertaining to issues of traffic enforcement.

We have laws for a reason, whether you like those reasons or not.

Let's let 'personal responsibility' decide when you can merge onto an interstate.

Yeah, that's the ticket.

[pnutbutr]

27. yeah

lemme know what that law is specifically concerning merging onto interstates.

[MajorChode]

29. It's called yielding to the right-of-way

And every state in the union has various laws regarding it.

[Frustratedlady]

3. This is also dangerous for the person opening the door...

I don't know how many times I've almost taken someone's door off when they opened it. They park away from the curb and open the door without even attempting to look. Some of those car doors are huge.

Cell phone usage while driving is another.

[Rob H.]

4. Sounds like a good idea to me

I've almost taken people's doors off with my car when they've flung them wide open without looking first. (And my car isn't small or hard to see like a bicyclist can be, either.)

[customerserviceguy]

5. How does this get enforced?

How is it proved that the motorist didn't look before opening the door? Or do we just automatically assume that every time there is a collision between bicyclist (barrelling down the road at whatever speed) and a car door, that the person opening the door just didn't look?

[canetoad]

6. Yes

You can just automatically assume that. Just like other road laws.

[customerserviceguy]

10. So now, we just take a tragedy

and compound it with a legal problem (on top of the lawsuit you're already going to face from the bicyclist)?

Maybe you'd be happy with charging everyone in an accident with talking on their cell phone while it happened, if it can be proved that they own a cell phone.

[dysfunctional press]

16. it would be pretty easy to determine if someone had been on a cell phone at the time of an accident-

call records would show whether or not they were on the phone at the time.

[customerserviceguy]

33. That's true, provided the time the cop writes down

is correct, and corresponds with the cell phone records. I'm just not sure how the cop determines what time I was thinking about looking out for bicyclists when I opened my door.

[MajorChode]

30. It's more about solving a legal problem, not compounding one

Like many other laws, they are not designed for rigorous enforcement. They are designed so that if and when there is an accident, you have one party that is clearly at fault. This PREVENTS cases from going to civil court in the first place.

[customerserviceguy]

35. How about the other way around?

If I have an incident when I'm either opening a door, or talking on my cell phone, and something bad happens, it is considered more of my fault, and somebody can sue me for a few more bucks?

Sounds simpler than trying to determine after the fact if somebody did a completely accurate job of looking behind them before opening a door.

Of course, that's not going to satisfy the "bikes-good, cars-bad" people, but it's a start at something resembling sanity.

[MajorChode]

39. It doesn't sound simpler to me

There's no need to determine anything with the currently proposed law. If you open your car door and a bike runs into the door, then you clearly didn't do an "accurate job of looking behind them". The driver can be ticketed and the biker won't have any problems with getting the driver's insurance to pay.

[customerserviceguy]

43. Then only two things will follow from that:

1) Bicyclists will have to still stay three feet from any car, since the really stupid people will not pay any attention to the law anyway.

2) Motorists will have to park in parking lots or garages only when in major cities, since there will be plenty of bicyclists who really don't care about #1 above, since the law is now on their side. I guess those motorists who insist on parking on city streets might just qualify as the "really stupid people" that rule #1 contemplates, since if anything bad happens, it is automatically their fault, end of sentence.

That appears to favor the bicyclist over the motorist, but I guess that's perfectly fine with most people here.

[MajorChode]

44. More non sequiturs from you

All the proposed law does is make people responsible to look before they open their car door, which should be common sense to anyone north of a room temperature IQ anyway. I'm not sure why that is so hard for you to understand. Perhaps you have some sort of irrational bias against bike commuters, who knows.

[customerserviceguy]

52. Responsible people already do responsible things

All this does is to criminalize something that generally falls in the "shit happens" category, without any regard to whether or not the door-opener was merely careless, or there were extenuating circumstances involved, such as the speed or direction of the bicyclist. I'm perfectly fine with having the door-opener completely financially responsible to the cyclist for injuries.

Thanks for the insults to my intelligence for my attempt to distinguish between an intent to commit a criminal act, and the possibility of an honest mistake. Sounds like you have one of those "cars = always bad, bikes = always good" mentalities that I was talking about.

I haven't seen one since I moved to NY, but back in the Pacific Northwest I frequently saw bumper stickers that said, "I Share The Road With Bicycles". It's a sentiment I agree with, and that means that cyclists share some responsibility for what they do, as well. I don't believe in automatic conviction for a criminal act when things happen inadvertantly.

[muriel_volestrangler]

53. This isn't 'shit happens'; it's someone in a car not looking before opening the door

It could, of course, be a car or truck they open the door in front of as well. The "speed or direction of the bicyclist"? Well, the speed will be less than other vehicles; if this is one of the bizarre parts of the US where some people say it's OK for cyclists to cycle on the wrong side of the road, then that would be a problem (that whole idea is a huge problem; there should be laws saying bicycles must not be on the wrong side of the road).

You seem to think that 'honest mistakes' by careless people don't matter on roads. They do. That's the whole point of many driving laws - you have to take care.

[MajorChode]

56. More bullshit

I'm perfectly fine with having the door-opener completely financially responsible to the cyclist for injuries.

Obviously you aren't fine with it, so you shouldn't pretend otherwise.

Here are two scenarios:

1) A cyclist rides through city streets at "30 mph" at door opening distance from cars.

2) A person carelessly opens a car door without looking to see if someone is approaching from behind.

You assume #1 is more common, but you aren't even within a cab ride of reality. So if you think pointing out the obvious is insulting your "intelligence", you might want to go have a cup of coffee and try to wake up.

If #1 happens, then the cyclist was being extremely negligent to begin with and any driver who would get ticketed for causing injury to said hypothetical cyclist could easily plead their case in the court in the unlikely event they were ticketed in the first place. It's no different than driver A who pulls out into the roadway and gets hit by driver B who tops a hill doing 90. Driver A will win his case in court every single time assuming he is ticketed in the first place which is another imagination stretch of the type you seem to believe.

[customerserviceguy]

57. Well, I'm done with this

Apparently there are a lot of folks here who don't want to think about the ramifications of making up new crimes, as long as their pet causes are involved.

I'll look forward to your support of a law that automatically makes all collisions between SUVs and Priuses the SUV driver's fault.

[Telly Savalas]

47. Normal people check their side mirror before opening the door when parallel parked.

[Obamanaut]

48. And normal people on bicycles and motorcycles are aware that

parked cars often have doors spring open unexpectedly because the folks inside didn't see us. I ride both, and never assume anyone sees me.

[customerserviceguy]

50. Yep, that's why I gave up motorcycle riding

Twenty years ago, drivers of cars didn't always "see" us when we were coming at them from the opposite direction and made left turns into us, even though we were bigger and made way more noise than a bicycle. Today, when they feel compelled to look at a cell phone (WTF are they expecting to see?) that they're yakking into, they don't even see other cars.

On city streets, you have parking strips down each side of the street, and the lanes of traffic in the middle, and the bicyclists using the narrow area between them, this is why door-opening accidents happen.

[Winterblues]

8. Usually when a Law is passed people self enforce themselves

People don't usually just flaunt laws. There are bound to be some that just feel Laws don't apply to them but the very great majority will abide by the law. It is pretty basic common sense IMO to look before opening your door..If a law is passed and the same accident had happened under the Law, the driver would be subject to civil and legal action. The way it is now it falls upon the bicyclist.

[customerserviceguy]

11. I really don't think

that people are out to deliberately screw with bicyclists. And I don't think a law in this case will make anyone more compliant. It would only get tacked on to whatever trouble the door opener was already in for racking up the rider, it really won't be enforced in any other situation.

The three-foot rule was based on prudence. If we really want to shift the prudence from the bicyclist to the people in cars, then we should expect more smacked bike riders.

[Edweird]

26. "I really don't think that people are out to deliberately screw with bicyclists."

You are tragically mistaken.

[customerserviceguy]

32. Well, then, I guess I haven't ridden a bike since I was a kid

and given both the state of traffic today (when I was a motorcyclist back in the 1980's, car people "couldn't see you", now they have cell phones and can't see cars!) and what appears to be your first-hand experience, I'd be damned if I'd ride one again.

Sounds to me like its a case of laws or no laws, it's just not safe to ride a bike in urban/suburban traffic anymore.

[muriel_volestrangler]

54. And yet, your logic implies that cyclists are out to crash into doors on purpose

Your claim that this will lead to "more smacked bike riders" implies they don't care about being in a collision that might injure them, and trash their bike - that it's the law that stops them from doing it; and yet, at the same time, you think that a law telling people in cars to look before opening their door will drive them from parking on the streets altogether, rather than just behaving rationally and considerately, by looking.

[ifuseekamy]

59. Um...no, you must not be much of a cyclist, Chum...

Trust me, I have gotten plenty of shit from motorists, and I try to ride as close to the curb as I can!

One example: asshats who lean on their horns to "warn" me that they are behind me. A) Duh, I'm in the street, I get that there are cars (and I'm not in their lane, by the way) and B) you could TAP that horn, asshat. WTF're you scaring me by being so aggressive?

[frylock]

23. you obviously don't live in cali..

otherwise you'd witness the flagrant disregard of the "hands-free" law that was implemented last june. people don't give a shit. i saw some woman just other day yakking on her celly and checking txt on another device... simulfuckingtaneously.

[customerserviceguy]

36. I'm with you on texting

but I am able to talk and drive a car at the same time, I do it when my lady and I are riding together. I'm in favor of the idea of penalizing the people who cannot do it by making sure they pay more in a lawsuit for the purpose of assessing damages when something goes wrong when they're yakking and driving.

We all have different driving skills, those lacking the requisite skills need to pay more to the people they screw up, without interferring with the rest of us.

[Dora]

The same way the back car is responsible for rear ending the front car in an accident.

The driver of the back car is responsible for allowing enough stopping space between it and the front car. Period.

[customerserviceguy]

37. Ah, but that's easy

I can clearly see the car in front of me, and make a rational decision about how much space to leave between it and my vehicle. I just might not see some spandexed two-wheeler ripping by at 30 MPH in time, if he's really on a tear, and trying to avoid traffic in the lane next to the one I'm parked in.

Fortunately, I don't have much occasion to park on city streets, and this will not happen often to me. I just would worry about a cop trying to determine after the fact if I was looking properly or not. Some thing you just can't see, like the classic example of the kid darting out into the street from between two parked cars. Bicyclists are like that, too.

[Dora]

49. What a crock.

If you look out your window to check for oncoming vehicles before opening your car door, then you can look out your window to check for oncoming bicycles. Spandex and the number of wheels have nothing to do with whether you take the time to look - or not.


Fortunately for everyone, you don't have much occasion to park on city streets. We are all safer because of this.

[customerserviceguy]

51. I always do look

Prudent door-openers (and we're not just talking drivers here, we're also talking passengers, and that includes children way too young to even think about driving) always check for anything when they open a door on a city street, and prudent bicyclists always presume that the people in cars that have just stopped probably don't see them.

My original question was about the enforcability of the law proposed here. Everybody who has answered me so far seems to be perfectly fine with the idea that if something bad has happened, then the door-opener is automatically to be found guilty under this law, and there are no possible defenses by a person charged with breaking such a law.

Sure glad the rest of the legal system doesn't work that way.

[Dora]

12. The same way the back car is responsible for rear ending the front car in an accident.

The driver of the back car is responsible for allowing enough stopping space between it and the front car. Period.

[frylock]

19. barrelling down the road at any speed..

so what's your top speed? oh, you DON'T ride. thanks for the advice anyway. :eyes:

[hfojvt]

21. right, because bicyclists usually break the speed limit

only not.

And it's impossible to be more than 3 feet from a parked car unless you wanna bike in traffic. 99.99999% of which is moving much faster than the average bicycle.

[frylock]

22. i agree..

and it's because of careless motorists that i limit the majority of my riding to the trails.

[customerserviceguy]

38. That's just prudent

Maybe we ought to just turn the downtown streets of every major city over to the bicyclists, that would certainly please some here. Having laws that make a cop have to determine what was in your mind when something bad happened is just a step in that direction.

May as well go all the way on this, eh?

[MajorChode]

42. Sorry, time to call bullshit

Cops already have to determine probably cause based on available facts. They do this every single day. Nothing they do is absolute. The cops apply the law and the courts arbitrate. There's nothing new about that.

So you "may as well" go down the road of non sequitur if you wish, but don't be surprised when someone calls bullshit on you.

[frylock]

46. okay?

[madmom]

15. Years ago I hit a car door that some one opened in front of me as I was turning a corner. It

did quite a bit of damage to her car, mine not so much. I pulled over into the nearest parking spot and went back. The driver just went crazy calling me all kinds of names, careless, stupid, etc. etc. When the police arrived he asked each of us what happened. After that he told me I could go and told the other driver to"please step over to my car so I can write your citation" She was furious. I smiled and left.

[Still Sensible]

20. They've obviously solved the economic crisis in

Wisconsin I see. Really, what would the passage of such a law mean? It seems to me any injured party can go into a civil court today and sue someone that has injured them through such means. The three-foot rule is equally bad, because three feet isn't generally enough to cover the size most car/truck doors.

And what about the responsibility on the other side? I'm trying to think of the possible circumstances. Other than someone sitting in a car for some time and opening the door upon seeing a bike rider coming by, why wouldn't the bike rider need to show caution when a car has just parked, when it is obvious someone is going to be getting out of it?

[pipi_k]

24. I don't know about anywhere else...

but here in Mass, a driver is required to have complete control of his vehicle at all times.

I've always understood that to mean from the moment s/he gets in to the moment s/he exits the vehicle and leaves it. I dunno...it just makes sense to me that if a person would be responsible for, say, putting the car in park or using the emergency brake on a hill or something, that person should also be responsible for making sure he's not going to cause an accident by flinging the door open without making sure it's safe to do so.

[SurfingScientist]

25. Why was this NOT the law yet???

Hard to believe that it has so far NOT been the law to LOOK before throwing an obstacle into flowing traffic...

My landlord in Cambridge/Mass has been doored 5 times. A lady in Cali got upset when she got ticketed for dooring a biker (quote: "who looks?").

I know some cyclists behave like asses, but most of the time we don't. We have to share to share a narrow bike lane (if any!) next to busy roads with the doors of parked cars.

No holier-than-thou attitude here - I know the problem from both the car driver and cyclist's side (almost doored people too). What this law does is (hopefully) raise some awareness in drivers, which is what's really needed. That's why it is a good thing to pass these laws. People will forget anything less than a binding regulation.

[TahitiNut]

28. Back during the Stone Age, when I took driver training, it was against the law to open doors into

... into traffic. That was Michigan in the late 50s. I'd be surprised to find that the laws have changed that much. I have ALWAYS been alert to all forms of traffic when parked in that way. Once upon a time, when bench seats were the norm, I remember drivers sliding across the seat to avoid exiting on the traffic side. With bucket seats and center consoles, it's not really possible for fatoldpharts like me.

[proud2BlibKansan]

31. A friend of mine in college nearly died

when he was on a bicycle riding to class and someone opened a door on him. He was going downhill and went head first into a parked car. Broke a couple bones, had a serious head injury and was in a coma for a month or so. Ended up missing a semester of school. It was not a minor accident at all.

[NashVegas]

34. How About Making More Bike Lanes, Instead?

Which everyone would benefit from.

[Raine]

40. Good...

I know someone who got hit by someone throwing their car door wide-open, caused lot's of damage.

[sofa king]

41. Ain't a week goes by that I don't think about that.

I ride a scooter, and what has kept me alive for eighteen months on the open road is the "stay all the way to the right" rule. I find myself riding way too close to parked cars when I'm in town, and if I keep doing it, sooner or later I'm going to find someone who forgets to look.

And then, not two months ago on a rare occasion when I was riding in a car, I opened the door onto the street without looking! "If I had been passing myself on my bike just now," I thought, "I would have killed myself."

I should add that the back-seat passenger in a four-door vehicle often has little chance of seeing far enough down the road to know if anyone is coming, anyway. That's not excusing myself--it's excusing the person who kills me. I killed myself the day I hopped on that little thing.

[BlooInBloo]

45. I'll care about their well-being on the road when they get off of the fucking sidewalk...

The fuckers think they get it ALL.

[Xenotime]

55. I am for this new law. There's a way to make this even more fair.

Laws need to favor those who have the smaller footprint. In this case, the rider of the bike. Those fines should go directly to him as well as any medical expenses.

[ifuseekamy]

58. The problem is that if someone breaks the law, it could be curtains for the cyclist...

In other words, making laws doesn't ensure people will actually follow them. I suggest we have bike lanes everywhere so that cyclists can allow enough room from parked cars yet still not have to worry about asshat motorists.