I was riding my bike in West Oakland a little while ago. I was on San Pablo, a busy street, but traffic was light. I was not going particularly fast, and I wasn’t going against a light or anything…
A guy in a parked car on my right threw open his car door as I passed, right into my thigh, knocking me into the intersection and into a car passing on my left.
THEN, the guy gets out of his car as I am on the ground, seeing stars, and yells at me to watch where I’m going.
Then the guy in the OTHER car tries to jam me because he thinks I dented his car door. (it turned out to be two streaks of rubber from my handle grip, because I was knocked into him that hard.
Meanwhile, my thigh is bruised all the way down to the bone and I suspect I’m going to miss a day or two of work. As I sit here now it is agonizing and starting to swell up.
I would have gotten their plate #s (after I stopped bawling my eyes out, of course). Biking in the street is far too dangerous, in my opinion, which is why I ride slowly on the sidewalk. I can pass as a child, so nobody bothers me about it.
No way, of course not, I wouldn’t act that way - both guys were royal jerks. And you’re lucky to not be hurt worse - although it sounds like you’re in pretty bad pain as it is. Sorry about that.
I don’t think they committed a crime, so calling the cops wouldn’t have done any good. Are parked drivers responsible if their opening door hits a cyclist? Does anyone know?
Keep the wound on ice and elevated above your heart level if you can - for a few hours. That’ll help keep the swelling down. Am glad you weren’t hurt worse, and am hoping you heal quickly. At least the Bay Bridge is closed so you can watch the bridge specials on TV.
I think the general rule is that if you take an action that injures someone else, you’re responsible for that action. I totally get that it was scary and might have been the wrong time to call cops, but it seems to me that getting an accident report and getting the driver’s insurance would be a prudent move, and that requires getting the cops on scene.
The second driver tried to jam you, OP? Not entirely sure what that means, but it sounds pretty illegal.
Depends on where you are, but in general it’s the driver’s responsibility to check that it’s safe to open their door. If it’d been a car that hit it, the parked driver would be at fault on the insurance.
Report it to the police. The driver will probably get a slap on the wrist at worst (even if he’d killed you), but letting it go unreported just helps people pretend this kind of thing isn’t dangerous.
Opening the door of a streetside-parked car into a cyclist is the same thing as opening that door into another car. Streets around here are tight, passing parallel-parked cars entails inches. People inside those cars are obligated to check to make sure there’s no traffic they’re about to open their door into, and that includes bicycles.
Hell yeah, I would have called the cops on him. On both of them. They want to bitch at me on my bike? While they basically tried to make a sandwich out of me? They can sort it out with a report. I wouldn’t care if it went anywhere, just that they had to account for their assholery on some level. Douchebags.
When I learned to drive it was the law that you look behind before opening the car door. I believe it is, but no one obeys it. They just fling the door open and devil take the hindmost. I have come close to hitting a lot of doors flung open like that. Turkeys.
When driving in the city, I try to be as aware as possible about bicyclists. I’ve seen too many cyclists hurt by careless drivers around the city. Philadelphia is trying to be very encouraging to bikes, but the drivers aren’t very courteous.
Dooring is one of the most common ways cyclists can get injured.
The police take it seriously round here, but as you can see from the link there’s no great consensus how to prevent it. Sadly, the onus is really on the cyclist to be hyper-aware of any parked cars with people on the drivers-side who might be thinking of maybe exiting the vehicle soon.
It’s part of Driving 101: when you’re parked on the street you open your car door slowly and carefully, making sure there’s no oncoming traffic of any sort that could hit you.
It is also part of Cycling 101: fail to ride in the door zone (the 3 to 4 feet next to parallel-parked cars). If that puts you into traffic, ride in the right-hand tire track of the lane. Most drivers will grumble or shout, but the ones who will hit you are psychopaths, who are not really all that common (though, when one is driving, it seems like every other driver is crazy and/or stupid).
Thing about skimming the door zone is it makes you hard to see. For someone getting out of their car, you are rather in a blind spot and moving much faster than they expect. At the same time, you are out of the view zone for traveling motorists, putting you at risk of being squeezed or, more commonly, hooked. So just ride in the street, drivers are supposed to deal with what ever is in front of them, put yourself there and they will deal.
The safest place to ride is IN the lane, so you aren’t in the way of doors.
Expect to get yelled at no matter where you ride. Most people think the laws say things they do not.
Of course I would never yell at an injured person, no matter whose fault the injury was.