I was doored yesterday. It was at low speed, and my shoulder brushed the side of the opening door as I went by. No harm done in the end.

How it happened ('cuz I never ride within dooring distance): It was a four lane (two lanes in my southward direction) and I was in the rightmost lane, riding about a meter from the curb. A car overtakes me on my left, and the proceeds to pull in front of me and stop. But instead of pulling over to the rightmost side of the lane, he stopped in the leftmost side of the lane. Because of the through-traffic in the left southbound lane, I couldn't go around him on the left. As I'm slowly rolling up this guy isn't moving, doesn't have any flashing lights on, etc, he's just dead stopped in the leftmost side of the righmost lane. I figure he's trying t be considerate to the cyclist he just overtook by leaving 3ft of clearance to his right. But as I slowly roll by on the right, BAM! Door opens in to me, I yell "be CARE-fullll!" to the driver, regain balance (door didn't open enough to knock me over), and continue on my way. Since the driver overtook me he knew that I was there, but this goes to show that you can never ever assume anything when it comes to your own safety. I'm very glad that I slowed down, proceeded cautiously, and was ultimately ready for it.

Anyway, the thank you in this post is to the driver behind the one who doored me. Perhaps he was also a cyclist. He caught me at the light and said, "Hey, I just want you to know that I had a word with the driver back there. I told him it's the law to look out for cyclists!" I was and still am very appreciative of his support at that moment.