Not in the A+S forum as I think it may have effected some cars drivers locally on my commute home. New Zealand has a tiny population:

Cyclist killed on highway off-ramp
Wellington's second cycling fatality today

The Dominion Post | Thursday, 19 June 2008

A male cyclist was killed in a crash with a truck during rush hour in the capital this evening.


The accident happened on State Highway 2's Petone off-ramp before 5.45pm.

The off-ramp was closed to all traffic, causing major delays.

Earlier today, a 61-year-old male cyclist died in Upper Hutt after hitting the door of a parked ute as it swung open and being knocked under an oncoming truck.

Senior Sergeant Jason McCarthy said the Upper Hutt resident was cycling south on Fergusson Dr, Silverstream, near St Patrick's College about 8.40am when he was knocked into the path of the truck coming the same way.

Witnesses tried to revive the victim till the ambulance arrived.

Police are contacting the man's family and have spoken to witnesses at the scene. They will examine the ute and truck before considering what, if any, charges will be laid.



I set off home much later after this news had been broadcasted.

The first thing I noticed was a car/"boy racer" car moved off the MUP I was riding along to let me pass, this never happens with these youngsters who hang out on this path in their cars.

Passing a couple of junctions a couple of cars actually waited for me to pass before pulling out even though I was a long way off.

I was overtaken by several cars at reasonable speeds.

I'm hoping it was because these car drivers actually saw me and thought about the deaths today.


I thought there was only one as the wife was concerned that it was a colleague who I've met once or twice who also commutes on a bike, I said to her on the phone "No way was he "doored" he's too experienced a commuter" then she said "no there has been another cyclist killed!"

Turns out the second one was a top ranking Road safety expert in the Police force-A Superintendent biking home after work.

Wrong.

Not exactly the news you want to hear for your ride home. Or ever.

sorry I spend my time here and at least one of the guys killed was a commuter

it had an impact on my commute today

sure the mods can review it and send it to A+S if they want to.

There is a school of thought, I have never tested it, that if you get doored, you should HEAD INTO THE COCKPIT OF THE VEHICLE and use the driver as "padding", versus getting run over. Does anyone know about this?

Sounds like nonsense to me. If you had a choice and control about where you were going to head, you wouldn't get doored in the first place.

Agreed, but everyone makes mistakes, even good riders.

What's the "least worse" plan B, going into the traffic lane or diving into the car cockpit? No time to look back, either.

If you can overcome the reflexive action that causes you to swerve away from the door, then yes, turn inward and aim for the hinged area of the car door. You and the driver may be hurt, but you'll probably both be alive vs. blindly veering into traffic. But that's a big IF.

Plus you'll wreck his door which will serve him right.

I suspect that most people who end up under the wheels of another vehicle when they get doored didn't swerve there. Bicycles are countersteering vehicles - when you pull back on the right handlebar the bike leans and turns to the left. Likewise, if you hit the right handlebar on a stationary object like a door, the bike leans to the left, and with a sudden impact may lean all the way over and toss the rider onto his left side into the street.

I have to wonder if, perversely, it's safer to ride very close to parked cars rather than nearly but not quite outside of the door zone. If you're close to the car you'll end up hitting the door squarely and either stopping suddenly or going flying, but if you're at the edge of the door zone and just hit the bar you'll end up getting thrown to the side into traffic.

Of course, the best place to ride is outside of the door zone - then it's not an issue when somebody opens the door without looking.

I always have to wonder what they expect to find when the do things like "examine the ute and truck." Do they expect to find that the door opened of its own accord, or that the truck was somehow at fault?

You miss the point. At the point where you're gonna get doored, you don't have time to choose which way you crash.

This is the second story I've read in as many weeks where getting doored ended in death by way of the biker being run over by following traffic.

Barring avoidance of the accident, it seems like the biggest threat is not impacting the door, but falling into traffic.

They say (and I've experienced) that time slows down for the participants in these situations. (It's a function of our physiology that responds to high stress situations). It is certainly feasible that a cyclist would have more "time to think" about what to do than a stopwatch would seem to indicate.

Our first instinct might be to avoid the door, but does that impart a deadly vector to our body before it goes airborne? Better to stay straight unless you are already certain (based on your continuous situational awareness cross-check) that there is no overtaking traffic. It seems to me that if I ran straight into the door, the worst thing that would happen is I go head-first over the top of it along the same straight-ahead vector, and that if I'm able to maintain my wits, I can control my landing to minimize the force of impact and control which way I go after that. Just wishful thinking, on my part, but it would be nice if this could be tested, and perhaps trained. I suppose hardcore trial-bikers (and acrobats) would have a leg up on this kind of skill.

Of course, better to ride carefully and avoid being in the door zone, but I'm sure that's not always possible. Where I ride the traffic is light and parked cars are few. I don't know how I'd do in a heavy urban zone.

+1
I am not a real "lane taker" except in avoiding doors. I always give the width of the door to myself, and I don't give a flying crap about how the driver behind me feels about that. We can pull over and fight about it.....after I avoid a dooring. For me, avoiding a dooring is not something that is optional. Door Zone=Possible Death=My Kids Growing Up Without A Father. Forget it, I am taking that lane each and every flipping time.
Sheesh.....now I am all worked up

Well, yeah, but who cares what the stopwatch indicates? Time may "slow down", but does it slow down enough? Not in my experience with dooring. So, you know, you might like to keep it in the back of your mind that IF you're gonna get doored you'd rather pile into the car than bounce off it, but when it happens, you won't have time to make a conscious decision and execute it.