Thursday night I picked up my wife from her office in Alexandria for dinner in Old Town. I was on a two lane oneway street, stopped at a two-way stop at another oneway street, looked, proceeded and pulled into the first parking space on the right, which happened to be empty. Stopped the car, checked my side mirror for cars and bikes, and started to open the door. I stop the door at few inches open and a bike blows by a few inches past that. He wasn't there the moment before when I checked the mirror and he hadn't been on the oneway. Looks like he came through the interesection from the far side of the cross street, blew the stop sign (based on his speed), turned left and swung across two lanes to ride in the door zone on the right side, next to where I had just parked. My checking the mirror had done no good, since he was coming in straight along my blind spot.
Luckily I'm in the habit of not swinging the door open all the way, but opening it a few inches so I can check the mirror again at a different angle and let anyone behind me know the door is about to open. That pause saved both of us. I would have felt terrible if I had doored a fellow cyclists. And I probably would have been blamed even though I had tried to do everything right and he had done almost everything wrong.
Last edited by cc_rider; 08-07-05 at 02:06 PM.