It was a lovely evening, and my kid was with a babysitter. Kelli and I were biking happily along, when someone flung their door wide open just before I got to their car. It was timed so perfectly that there was no way I could have reacted in time to avoid hitting it, yet I was safe because I never ride in the door zone. Instead, it merely surprised the crap out of me and missed my bike by a few inches.
The experience was a clear example of how important it is to stay out of the door zone when biking, and I’ve been thinking about it a lot since it happened. With so many people choosing to start biking around Seattle in recent years, I thought it would be good to make sure you all know what the door zone is and how to avoid it. I don’t often write posts about bicycling tactics, but maybe I should.
The door zone is the space next to a stopped or parked car that the car door can reach when opened to its widest point. As my close miss illustrates, you cannot rely on any warning signs before someone opens the door, and a lot of people are in the habit of recklessly flinging their doors fully open without first checking if it is clear. It is the legal responsibility of the person opening the door to only do so if it is safe, but the real world consequences fall to the bike rider who is hit. Running into a door is bad enough, but getting knocked into nearby traffic is much worse. Even if a rider doesn’t hit the door, it is dangerous to suddenly swerve toward traffic to avoid one.
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The best solution is for the local transportation department to always build a safe bike lane that is clear of door hazards. But the best solution that you can implement yourself today is to never ride within the door zone. Don’t even let your handlebar hang into it. Often, this means occupying the full traffic lane next to the parked cars since there is likely not enough room for people to pass safely within the same lane while you also keep clear of the door zone. On streets with outdated painted bike lanes located within the door zone, I often find myself riding near or on top of the bike lane line. On streets with very skinny bike lanes or extra-wide parked vehicles (more and more common due to car bloat), the safest place to ride is in the traffic lane as though there is no bike lane at all. Washington State does not have a law requiring people to stay in the bike lane, and instead states that people shall bike as far right “as is safe.” The presence of painted bike symbols does not make the door zone safe.
The safest place to ride is in a spot that avoids the door zone while also minimizing close passes. If you leave a car-sized space open within a lane, people will try to squeeze by even if there is not enough space to do so with a safe margin (three feet is state law). It may feel counterintuitive at first, but it is safer in these situations to remove all doubt by taking the lane, riding in the middle so that anyone who wants to pass must change lanes to do so. I am not saying that this will always be comfortable. Even with a couple decades of daily experience, I still get nervous taking the lane on streets with faster traffic and fewer stops because, well, those streets are dangerous. I try my best to avoid such streets whenever possible, but sometimes there’s no other reasonable option.
Remember, you have the right to bike on the road in the manner that best keeps you safe. Resist the feeling of being bullied over to the side and into the door zone. Aside from the occasional road rager (the most delicate snowflakes on the road), people generally understand that you are just riding a bike and don’t want to be next to parked car doors.
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These are all skills that you can learn, but the need to learn such skills explains why places with low-quality or missing bike infrastructure have lower rates of cycling. There are plenty of people who find all of this so unappealing that they choose not to bike at all or to drive their bikes to trails. Seattle is in a transition phase in which people can get to a lot more places on quality bike infrastructure, and so we are seeing a lot more people start biking. But there are a lot of places that still require on-street riding on streets with outdated designs.
Car drivers and passengers can also learn to avoid creating door zone hazards by doing the so-called “Dutch reach.” It’s deceptively simple: Pull the door handle with your inside hand (right hand for driver’s side, left hand for passenger’s side). Reaching across your body encourages you to turn your head toward the car’s mirrors and to look toward the window. Even if you are a selfish monster who doesn’t care if you hurt someone on a bike, this trick also helps prevent opening doors into the paths of buses and other cars. Here’s a handy video: