To Bikers, an Open Door Is No Invitation
The New York Times
By Jim O'Grady

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Two weeks ago, Marina Bekkerman was bicycling with a group on Neptune Avenue in Coney Island when the driver of a double-parked van threw open his door as she passed and struck her in the back. The impact propelled her forward, and she came crashing down.

"I have a small fracture in my pubic bone," said Ms. Bekkerman, who was taken by ambulance to Coney Island Hospital. "I feel the pain with every step. I still can't lift my arm."

Ms. Bekkerman had been doored, a victim of the most common bicycling accident in New York. A 1999 study by the Department of City Planning found that more than 1,000 times in a typical year, cyclists collide with vehicle doors that drivers or passengers open into traffic. Three or four New York bicyclists die from dooring each year.

Transportation Alternatives, a bicycle and pedestrian advocacy group, says many of these accidents occur with cabs. So the group has designed a 3-by-5-inch sticker urging passengers to exit from the sidewalk side of their cab. It has asked the New York Taxi and Limousine Commission to display them in the back seats of cabs.

"Having a graphic would make a huge difference," said Noah Budnick, a spokesman for the group. "In Manhattan, cabs set the pace on the streets. Their habits are picked up by other drivers."

The group is also proposing that cabs be fitted with illuminated arrows that point passengers to the curbside door.

But Matthew W. Daus, the chairman of the commission, did not seem eager to take either step. He said the commission was considering other changes, like adding a warning to the recorded announcement in cabs or installing a signal on the outside of cabs to warn bicyclists that a passenger is about to open the door.

"Our schools currently teach drivers that they should make sure passengers get out at curbside," Mr. Daus said. "And our instructors have been spending even more time on it."

It is illegal in New York to open a vehicle door into the path of a motorist or bicyclist. Violators receive summonses, but Detective Walter Burnes, a Police Department spokesman, said no separate records were kept on the issuance of such summonses.

Some bicyclists have developed safety strategies. Amanda Hickman, a fact checker at Condé Nast who commutes to Midtown Manhattan from Greenpoint, Brooklyn, has been bruised and scraped in two doorings, the most recent from a cab door.

"My heart skips a beat every time I see a car door open on the driver's side," she said. But now she yelps when she senses danger. "I go, `Laaaaaah,' " she said. "It seems to scare people enough that it freezes them."

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