caloso

Here is the statute in question, which applies to you, the OP, and me:

Vehicle Code § 21208
§ 21208. Permitted movements from bicycle lanes

(a) Whenever a bicycle lane has been established on a roadway pursuant to Section 21207, any person operating a bicycle upon the roadway at a speed less than the normal speed of traffic moving in the same direction at that time shall ride within the bicycle lane, except that the person may move out of the lane under any of the following situations:
(1) When overtaking and passing another bicycle, vehicle, or pedestrian within the lane or about to enter the lane if the overtaking and passing cannot be done safely within the lane.
(2) When preparing for a left turn at an intersection or into a private road or driveway.
(3) When reasonably necessary to leave the bicycle lane to avoid debris or other hazardous conditions.
(4) When approaching a place where a right turn is authorized.
(b) No person operating a bicycle shall leave a bicycle lane until the movement can be made with reasonable safety and then only after giving an appropriate signal in the manner provided in Chapter 6 (commencing with Section 22100) in the event that any vehicle may be affected by the movement.

Veh. Code, § 21208

It should be clear from this discussion that the likelihood of being struck by a suddenly opened door is a hazardous condition.

caloso

I realize it's poor form to quote your own post, but I was thinking about this on my lunch ride and decided that this could be ordered better:

1) determine for yourself the safest position to ride under the conditions, including the minimum safe distance from the widest likely door
2) if that position is within the bike lane, ride there
3) if that position is outside the bike lane, ride there, but first
3a) look back and find a break in traffic
3b) put out your left hand to signal you're moving over
4) carry on to your destination

I-Like-To-Bike

No data, as well as cherry picked data or manipulated data does not stop various self styled bicycling safety experts of the effective/vehicular persuasion from making up conclusions that suit their take- the-lane mantra. This has been a near universal technique for some of these "safety experts" and their acolytes for the last 45+ years.

Hence posted on BF as it were a fact written in stone -"you have a LOT LESS chance of being rear ended in the traffic lane than you do of being hit and deflected into that traffic lane after an opening door hits you."

I-Like-To-Bike

Sure, ignore anybody who ask questions about presumably fabricated facts about bicycling risk.

njkayaker

Nothing here is "written in stone".

The "as it were a fact" is your interpretation.

If it was a high speed road (45+ mph), the risk of not riding in the door zone would likely be higher.

Is riding in the door-zone in the particular street in the OP a good choice?

SactoDoug

Yes, it is a hazardous condition but I believe a lot will have to do with the context. I do not believe that a cyclist will be able to ride an entire street in the traffic lane to avoid the door zone. There would have be be a specific and identifiable hazard in order to leave the bicycle lane. All the other reasons given in the law are specific and would only hinder traffic momentarily.*

Look at it from the perspective of a traffic cop. They see a line of cars behind a cyclist. They pull over the cyclist and asks why they were not using the bicycle lane. If the reason is the general danger of a door possibly opening, I would bet they get cited or at least a warning.*

Maybe we will be lucky and there is a California traffic lawyer or police officer on the forum that could clarify things for us.


* I am not a lawyer and don't pretend to be. This is all opinion.

CliffordK

I've been thinking a bit about cars & bike safety in general.

We have rules that many of us have learned since childhood, like "look both ways before crossing the street".

We need similar rules,

• "look both ways before exiting a vehicle".
• Crossing a bike lane for a right turn is crossing a traffic lane. Look before making the turn.
• Give 'em 3 feet, 4 feet, 5 feet, 1/2 lane, whatever, when passing, even if they are on a shoulder.
• Vigilance, and understanding bike movements and reactions.
• Look both directions when crossing a sidewalk or crosswalk.
• etc

I learned driving from my parents, but have had a couple of "refresher courses" for one reason or another. I remember important subjects of look-ahead, anticipate road conditions ahead, mirrors, etc. But don't remember vulnerable road users ever being mentioned.

Digger Goreman

Bicycle lanes are archaic remains of pre-WWII thinking, when roads were not striped and slow traffic was required to move far right. When roads were lane controlled, cyclists were (un?)intentionally forgotten. By the 70's, we were being treated "as traffic" after decades of a second classification mindset, which is still going on today....

Bicycle lanes are like condoms: they give you a false sense of safety and protection, while you are being screwed!

Scrap the paint and all B.S....

Enforce the law that makes it illegal for two vehicles to occupy the same lane AND prosecute offenders for reckless (and innatentive) driving....

Time to cut the second-classery and treat us equivically!

Daniel4

If there's one thing I can praise about Toronto bike lanes is that when there are parked cars, the bike lanes are located between the curb and the parked cars separated by bollards or other physical separations in a 1 ft margin.

Doorings can still happen but on the passenger side and only if the passenger wildly swings the door open without concern about hitting the door against the bollard or planters.

I-Like-To-Bike

At what actual vehicle speeds does road riding become less dangerous for a bicyclist than riding in a door zone on busy roads or streets? How did you or any other BF or VC brand "bicycling safety expert" measure the overall risk factors in order to come to a near universal decision on the subject?

CliffordK

The greatest dangers from dooring aren't the primary injuries, but rather secondary injuries. Either swerving into the path of traffic, or being knocked into the path of traffic.

So, one gets the even transformed from a low speed bike accident into a high speed auto accident.

Nearly all deaths due to dooring are due to being run over by moving traffic.

Daniel4

So, what would be so bad about ringing your bell or sounding your horn while riding in the bike lane passing a row of parked cars?

Daniel4

What's also baffling is that, in order for a driver to park his or her car, she would have to cross the bike lane. Not only would a good driver have checked the blindspot for cyclists before parking, she would have noticed you in the bike lane first while she was driving no matter how far ahead she was from you.

Jim from Boston

FWIW I have frequently posted about my routine, structured, safety mindset for the vulnerable users...the cylists:

I-Like-To-Bike

Any info on just how many "deaths by dooring" have occurred in the U.S. and/or Canada over the last decade or two? Or perhaps info on the percentage of bicycle fatalities that have been the result of a "dooring"?

Also helpful to determine just how great is the risk would be credible data about number of dooring collisions and the severity of resulting injuries in conjunction with some credible data on the exposure rate of bicyclists to potential dooring incidents, regardless if bicycle lane stripes are present or not.

One back of an envelope guesstimate after many years of observation of city riding in Philadelphia would indicate that most bicyclists who do ride on busy urban streets that also have street parking, almost always ride to the right of traffic (often in the door zone) rather than in the traffic lane; the always-take-the-lane guys seem to exist more on the Internet than in real life on busy urban streets.

KraneXL

BrilliantWell you started off well enough. The green paint increases awareness.That would defeat the purpose, don't you think?There is no defense against every possible danger in all directions all the time. If its going to happen at least you won't be held liable for damages.

Blind spot warning? Its already been figured out. It just needs to be applied more generally. Thank God for 21st century technology.There are foolproof lanes here too, but they're few and far between.

mr_bill

Around here, Dana Laird in 2002 and Amanda Phillips in 2016 are the most recent dooring related fatalities, but both were thrown under large vehicles after being doored or hitting a door (MBTA bus and landscaping truck).

However, killed is the opposite of canary in a coal mine.

In seriously injured, studies in Boston and Cambridge put dooring as the number one driver factor in causing bicyclist injuries at about 20% of driver factors. (SMIDSY is number two at about 15%. Though really, both together are SMIDL.)

Cyclist factors are riding like Joey (running red lights, stop signs, too fast for conditions, riding into oncoming traffic) at nearly 50%.

However, caveat. Most police department crash reports lack reported driver factors or cyclist factors. And many reports are cursory at best.


BTW, got any studies to back up your "guesstimate?" (Of course not.)

But I'll agree with you that the "always" crowd is vanishingly small.

But there is a fairly large and growing pragmatic crowd, at least that's my annecdote looking around here. Of course, around here there are lots of people riding bicycles. And lots of car doors.

-mr. bill

Leisesturm

If you think about it for a minute you would see it just isn't sustainable. Maybe where you live there aren't blocks and blocks of parked cars but many of us do have those conditions. It just wouldn't work having to ding every parked car you pass. No, just no. If that practice ever took hold in Portland it would be only a matter of months till a ban came down from City Hall on the practice. Portland has one of the premier Mass Transit systems in the nation. Cyclists so paranoid about doorings should strongly consider just not riding a bicycle in traffic.

Leisesturm

I am not sure quite where Portland, OR fits in the hierarchy of cities but it's definitely lower than NYC or Philly. Probably higher than Macon, GA (no disrespect meant). We have unpaved streets here. We have many passive control intersections. Our police dept. has 120 unfilled vacancies. It has an outlier cycling community in every way that can be measured except raw numbers of cyclists (NYC probably wins that one). IF your cycling utopia requires complete equivalency with motor traffic then I don't think I am wrong in thinking it would probably happen here (PDX) first. But it won't. En masse, cyclists KNOW that a 35lb Surly Long Haul Trucker is not close to being a Ford Escape small SUV. A striped off section of roadway works very well and a sharrow works even better for keeping rational VC commuters safe from harm.

mr_bill

Let's back up a moment. Ringing your bell at parked cars is INNEFECTIVE.

For two reasons.

One, most parked cars are EMPTY.
Two, parked cars with occupants usually have closed windows, and nobody INSIDE the car is going to hear your damned bell.

In Amsterdam, land of the bring-bring-bring, nobody bring-bring-brings anyone in cars. They bring-bring-bring people walking. Tourists walking. Locals walking. Anyone walking. (Sometimes they bring-bring-bring people on bikes too.)

Bring-bring-bring.

-mr. bill

Leisesturm

Ridiculous. No one rides like that. Not even you. Widest likely door ... sigh. That 'carry on to your destination' that you carried over from the previous post is the deal-breaker that invalidates both posts because they conveniently ignore the reality that a cyclist that unilaterally decides that the bike lane provided for them does not meet their personal standards for safety is free to not use it. But they are NOT free to use the vehicle lane except for short distances. If your 'destination' fits that criterion, fine. If, as is likely, there still is a ways to go, then the trip in the vehicle lane will not be a pleasant one. It might even culminate in a road rage tragedy. That such dramas are rarely played out on evening news reporting speaks to the low occurrence of extra vehicular bike lane cruising. As observed elsewhere in this thread, the actual behavior of cyclists in the real world is in sharp contrast to its portrayal in Bike Forum threads. And we are the better off for that.

njkayaker

That's true but it's not an advantage.

The green paint makes drivers think you are supposed to be there. The law (in CA) tells you might get a ticket if you aren't in the green area.

You have more options without this particular green paint.

https://cyclingtips.com/2019/04/bike...-lanes-at-all/

???

Whut? Cyclists should be using a lane even if it's dangerous/risky?

https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2...infrastructure

No one is claiming otherwise. Everybody should be aware of this trivially-obvious point.

If it happens, you might be seriously injured or even dead.

njkayaker

At the speed of an unladen sparrow. Precisely.

==================

Is the risk of being rear-ended the same in 50 mph traffic as in 10 mph traffic?

Dooring events wouldn't seem to increase with faster traffic (it might even be less because people might take more care).

Of course, the consequences of being knocked into higher speed traffic would likely be more severe. But at lower speeds, drivers might be better able to slow down.

njkayaker

Lots of people regularly ride like this. The "widest likely door" would be an estimate/guess.

caloso

I absolutely ride like that. I am the best judge of the safest place to ride, not green paint. Reread Sec. 21208.

Vehicle Code § 21208
§ 21208. Permitted movements from bicycle lanes

(a) Whenever a bicycle lane has been established on a roadway pursuant to Section 21207, any person operating a bicycle upon the roadway at a speed less than the normal speed of traffic moving in the same direction at that time shall ride within the bicycle lane, except that the person may move out of the lane under any of the following situations:
(1) When overtaking and passing another bicycle, vehicle, or pedestrian within the lane or about to enter the lane if the overtaking and passing cannot be done safely within the lane.
(2) When preparing for a left turn at an intersection or into a private road or driveway.
(3) When reasonably necessary to leave the bicycle lane to avoid debris or other hazardous conditions.
(4) When approaching a place where a right turn is authorized.
(b) No person operating a bicycle shall leave a bicycle lane until the movement can be made with reasonable safety and then only after giving an appropriate signal in the manner provided in Chapter 6 (commencing with Section 22100) in the event that any vehicle may be affected by the movement.

Veh. Code, § 21208

Subd. (a) (3) explicitly authorizes a rider to move out of the lane to avoid a hazardous condition. A row of doors that jut into the bike lane is absolutely a hazardous condition. Whether it's one car or an entire block or 10 miles, it is still a hazardous condition, and the rider is authorized to move out of the lane to avoid it for the entire distance the hazardous condition exists.

The Ford F-150 is usually the widest likely door that I encounter. It might be different where you live.