The Door Zone Project
Many cyclists make the mistake of riding too close to parked cars. This is extremely dangerous. Many cyclists have been seriously injured or even killed because they were riding in the door zone, i.e., close enough to parked cars so that when a car door suddenly swung open, it was in the path of the cyclist. In some cases, the cyclist hit the door and the bicycle stopped but the cyclist continued in motion, flying over the door, landing on the pavement ahead. In other cases, the cyclist hit the door and was knocked over into the path of moving traffic, sometimes right under the wheels of a bus or large truck that could not possibly stop, and the cyclist was crushed. In other cases, the cyclist swerved to avoid the door, but lost control of the bike and fell and was hit or veered into traffic in a panic move and got hit.
These types of accidents are so common, there is a word for them: to be "doored" is to be struck by or to crash into the door of a parked car (or less commonly, a car waiting at a stoplight) as the driver or passenger carelessly flings it open without looking to see if any cyclists are coming. This doesn't have to happen. Obviously, drivers and passengers should not be so careless. But cyclists should not be riding in the door zone.
So why does it happen?
Why do cyclists ride in the door zone? Many are reluctant to ride further out in the traffic lane. Maybe they do not believe they are safe as part of the flow of traffic. But riding in the door zone is the most dangerous place they can ride, as these cases show. Maybe if the lane is narrow, riding out of the door zone means taking the lane, and they feel uncomfortable "inconveniencing" motorists for a brief while. This is not rational. You are not required to die for anyone's convenience. I do not advocate inconveniencing others unnecessarily, but safety always comes before convenience.
There is another reason some cyclists ride in the door zone. They may believe they are not. I have read articles about riding out of the door zone that recommend riding at least 3 feet from parked cars. But some car doors are up to 4½ feet long! If a cyclist rides 3 feet from parked cars, he or she is still in the door zone! I don't ride any closer than 5 feet from parked cars, and I'm measuring from the nearest point of my bike toward the cars, not from the center of my bike.
Also, some cyclists face pressure from police or other city officials to ride close to parked cars. There may be bike lanes next to parked cars which are entirely within the door zone. Dana Laird was riding in one of these. Many bike lanes are excellent, but bike lanes next to parked cars encourage inexperienced cyclists to ride in the door zone. If you encounter one, ignore the lane marking, and do not ride closer than 5 feet from the parked cars.
I gathered the information below after an Ann Arbor Bicycle Coordinating Committee meeting at which our Chief of Police was present. He insisted that taking the lane was "madness" and said cyclists should ride close to parked cars until they saw a door opening. He refused to listen when we told him this was extremely dangerous and cyclists had been killed. We scheduled a follow-up meeting with some other people in the police department. I decided that before that meeting, I would gather as many newspaper accounts of people who had been killed or injured in dooring accidents as I could to present to the police. I wanted to show them with names, dates, locations, etc., that this really was dangerous, if they wouldn't just take our word for it. When we met with the other officers, they were already well aware of how dangerous riding in the door zone was. I was greatly encouraged by that. I gave them the newspaper articles anyway, though I wasn't sure it was really necessary. I suppose it couldn't hurt anyway.
Since I had spent about 50 hours researching and hunting down the articles, I wanted to make the information available to other cyclists to use in their advocacy efforts. If I can save someone some work, great.
The first eleven cyclists were killed; the next five were injured.