Montreal City Weblog

Kate 08:46 on 2020-05-20 Permalink Reply  

• Blork 10:47 on 2020-05-20 Permalink

  I’d like to see this compared with the number of actual incidents of dooring. Has that gone down too? If so, that’s a good thing and it shows that the ticketing was effective in putting dooring “on the radar” so to speak of drivers.

• JaneyB 10:53 on 2020-05-20 Permalink

  We need to make that Dutch door opening technique (that I think I learned about from Mare here) compulsory to get a license. See: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AD50tVXIXB4

• DeWolf 11:43 on 2020-05-20 Permalink

  One thing that may also have helped is that over the past couple of years many bike lanes now have a door zone buffer that reduce the risk of dooring. It’s not perfect but it gives cyclists several more inches to avoid open doors.

  A more extreme example is Milton Street, whose counterflow bike lane was expanded last year by replacing all parking on the south side of the street, with a big painted buffer between cyclists and oncoming traffic. We may see something similar when the notoriously bad St-Urbain bike lane is widened this summer.

  Incidentally, this topic reminds me of something I saw on Wellington Street in Ottawa, where the entire dooring zone has been painted with a hatched pattern and the words “DOORING ZONE – ZONE D’EMPORTIÉRAGE” which weirdly makes dooring sound like an officially sanctioned activity.

• Ian 11:54 on 2020-05-20 Permalink

  There was also a big advertising campaign about dooring around the same time as the new bike lane spacers came into effect. I’ve also been noticing a lot of double wide paths in places like Verdun, NDG & the Point, I imagine they must help. Even Westmount’s bike paths like the one on Cote St Antoine are getting safer.

  Milton is still a bit of a mess for bicyclists but getting rid of parking on the counterflow side was a good idea – the street was just too narrow for bidirectional paths & parking on both sides especially given the insane levels of foot, bike and car traffic in that area. My kids and I used to walk along there going to school every morning and even just trying to cross the streets on foot was a bit freaky – especially when dealing with small children.

• Alex L 12:07 on 2020-05-20 Permalink

  My girlfriend was doored two years ago and didn’t want to call the cops since the driver had been nice with her, but she still had injuries to her knees and arms and was shocked by the event. Being kind of a hardcore militant on those issues, I convinced her to call the police station. They shunned her by saying there was nothing they could do, as all the officers were occupied elsewhere and she and the driver had left the spot.

  I suspect she’s not the only one who had that kind of experience. Collisions that happen when riding a bicycle are just not taken seriously by the police, even less if it happens in car-centric boroughs.

• Uatu 13:45 on 2020-05-20 Permalink

  That Dutch door technique was how I was taught to open my car door back in driver’s Ed in high school. Does no one teach that anymore?

• Blork 15:09 on 2020-05-20 Permalink

  Regarding the police response, what Alex L describes is pretty conventional. You can’t expect the cops to spend much time on an incident long after it happened, when the parties involved have left the scene, and there are no serious damage or injuries.

  Aside from people’s indignance over anything involving cars, the reality is that you either get the cops there at the time it happens or you move on. Dooring, as bad as it is (and it is bad) is almost always an accident (meaning the driver didn’t intend to do it). That doesn’t make it not a problem, but you can’t treat it like a drunk-driving thing or a pre-meditated assault. So if the cops aren’t called to the spot, or if there isn’t a third-party witness, then it becomes a “who do you believe?” scenario. And frankly, given the way cycling and cars is such a hot button topic, with all of the hysterics and grandstanding that goes with such thing (on both sides), it’s hard to believe either party unless there’s a witness.

• Joey 15:28 on 2020-05-20 Permalink

  @Blork and yet if two cars are involved in an accident (and nobody is seriously hurt), nobody summons the police, they never get involved and the insurance companies sort it out based on testimony from the involved parties. We need a similar protocol for accidents involving cyclists, including ones where the cyclist is the “victim” and ones where the cyclist is the “perpetrator” (e.g., if a cyclist knocks over a pedestrian).

• Kevin 16:01 on 2020-05-20 Permalink

  Just posting this checklist here https://saaq.gouv.qc.ca/en/traffic-accident/event-of-an-accident/

• mare 17:22 on 2020-05-20 Permalink

  @Kevin. Ha! The SAAQ (and the police) thinks road accidents are only road accidents when there are car(s) involved. I had a bike-pedestrian accident and “No, you’re not covered under the SAAQ insurance” despite paying for that insurance through my drivers license and car registration. I was transported away from the scene to the hospital in an ambulance, but the police didn’t make a report even though they were at the scene. Never found out who the kid was that ran onto the the bicycle path and that I managed to avoid hitting. I took a bad fall, landed on my head (fortunately I was wearing a helmet; it even broke). Had lots of medical costs, inability to work and loss of income, but could never claim them since the police hadn’t taken any names or witness reports. To this day, 16 years later, I still have physical impairments because of that accident. But no car, no accident. The SAAQ seriously told me that if I had hit a parked car I *would* have been in an accident, and they would have paid. Next time I’ll try to think about that advice.

• Blork 18:17 on 2020-05-20 Permalink

  Well, to be fair, it is the Société de l’assurance AUTOMOBILE du Québec. I don’t expect the SAAQ tp pay if I crash into a utility pole while riding a skateboard. Their mandate AFAIK isn’t to cover “road accidents” it’s to cover AUTOMOBILE accidents, and that mandate comes out of the high cost of car ownership plus the specific dangers they create.

  Otherwise it’s just an accident, like the skateboard example, or if I fell out of a tree onto the road.

  I’m not saying it *should* be that way, but it is. Maybe there should be some kind of expanded coverage for bicycles. At a minimum that would require bicycle riders to be licensed (do we want that?). Then what about skateboards and wheelchairs? Segways? (etc. etc.)

  I still have chronic shoulder pain from a bike/ped accident about 25 years ago (I was the cyclist, but I maintain it was not my fault). I fell to the ground and hurt my shoulder. The guy I clipped (stepping out from between parked cars while not looking) seemed to have a sore shoulder too but at least he stayed on his feet. Him and his buddies were yelling all sorts of anti-cyclist things at me until I suggested calling the police, then suddenly everything was fine, just a sore shoulder, blah blah blah. Turns out my front wheel even dented the door of the car I was passing (not sure how that happened), and I’m pretty sure it was his car. If I’d had any inkling I’d still be aching 25 years later I might have insisted on calling the cops, although I don’t know what good insurance would have done me then (the bike, oddly enough, was not damaged).

  BTW, @Joey, you’re talking apples to my oranges. Your example is all about insurance, vs. what I was saying was about police and pressing charges or whatever.

• Chris 18:25 on 2020-05-20 Permalink

  >but you can’t treat it like a drunk-driving thing or a pre-meditated assault

  For the latter I agree. But is dooring really so different from drunk driving? In both cases, it’s an ‘accident’ (“meaning the driver didn’t intend to do it”, as you defined it). A drunk driver *doesn’t* intend to hit anyone, but he *did* choose to drive a car while drunk. He should have known the latter makes the former more likely. Likewise, a doorer *doesn’t* intend to hit anyone, but he *did* choose to open his door without looking properly. He should have known the latter makes the former more likely.

• Blork 18:56 on 2020-05-20 Permalink

  Chris, drunk driving is a crime whether you hit anyone or not.

• Chris 23:15 on 2020-05-20 Permalink

  True, that’s also a substantial difference.