Anyone else been doored? Share your stories.

General Pub
1

As some of the brisbane gang know, I was doored by a car on the weekend. I would be interested to hear the if anyone else has had this happen to them.

To get the most important questions out of the way first.

  1. The bike is fine. Ripped bar tape on the left hand side and a big scratch down the side of my (almost brand new) bullhorns (grrrrrr).

  2. I am fine too. Big bruise on shoulder/arm and 3 stitches from a fairly deep cut on the arm.

Ok, what happend? Well it is pretty predictible really.

I was riding down the street near my house. It has a full two lanes, one of which is for traffic and the other is bike lane with car parking spaces. It is a farily wide one and not anywhere near as dangerous as most of these type of shared use bike lanes. I was right on the edge of the lane where I usually ride giving what I thought was safe distance (1+meter) to the parked cars.

In a moment of perfect timing a door opened wide and the next thing I knew I was on the ground, in the middle of the traffic lane! I was very lucky that there was no oncomming traffic. I extraced myself from the bike and moved quickly to the side of the rode.

This is where it all got a bit wierd and surreal. I sort of expected the driver to sort of ask if I was ok but what I got can be paraphrased by “look what you did to my door”, “this is all your fault”, “what were you doing riding that close to my car” and “you better give me your details so I can send you a bill”. I responded with few well placed and very loud expetitives, pointed it out that it was a bike lane and that he had a responsibiltiy to look before opening a door into traffic. I was then forcibly told that it was not a bike lane (it is) and that it is again my fault. I suggested politly (actual very impolitely, but this is a family site:) ) that he call the police if he wanted to assign blame (ha ha ha), which he did.

At this point I had a bit of a sit down and noticed that I was starting to bleed quite a bit from underneath the sleave of my shirt. A couple of guys from “bicycle revolution” and “useful garbage” (big thanks) came over attracted by our ranting at each other and looked after me while the shock of the whole thing set in. The gave me water, a bandage to apply the gash on my arm and kept me company till the police and ambulance arrived. They also offered to look after my bike for me while I took a trip to the local hospital.

Anyway from what I can piece together I was doing about 25-30km/h and my front wheel missed the door (another 5-10cm and I would of missed it too). The outside of the bullhorn scraped down the door but I took most of the impact on my left arm/shoulder. I bent the door of the car back enough that it would no longer close, and managed to shed enough forward speed that I just sort of fell into the road about level with the front of the car.

At the end of the day I was about as lucky and uninjured as you could possibly be given the situation. I almost feel ashamed to write this much about it given what happend to nath recently (get well dude). I have written way too much on this so I will shut up now.

I am interested to hear if anyone else has had this happen to them and how they and their bikes came out of it.

Ride safe everyone.

2

I’ve personally had to slam a couple of doors on people as I rode past. I hope I got their arms!!

But my missus came off much worse one day (actually boxing day to be exact).

Riding through the CBD on her way to meet me, she collected a door, or is it that a door collected her.

It bent the door back on itself.

It also bent the forks of the bike back on themselves.

Big grazes to her calf, arm and a massive bruise on her chest which impacted with the door not long after the wheels did.

She was pretty lucky that the bloke got out of the car all apologetic.
He gave her his card - said he would go to a bike shop and put some cash behind the counter for her to fix her bike and pay for any medical bills she might have.

It turned out that the bike shop said her bike was written off, rang the bloke and he put $500 down. Elke chipped in another $200 or so and had a new bike( the old one was fixed and is used as a pub bike by her brother)

She was alright bar the scrapes and bruises and a couple of left over scars.

She doesn’t ride so close to cars any more.

Hope you mend as quickly as elke did mate!

3

I have been ‘car doored’ a number of times. Not much fun.

It is the drivers responsibility to do a head check before opening their door as stipulated in the road rules.

http://www.vicroads.vic.gov.au/vrpdf/rdsafe/DrivinginVicRR.pdf. See page 72.

A person must not cause a hazard to any person or vehicle by opening a door of a vehicle, leaving a door of a vehicle open, or exiting a vehicle.

It does not mater if your in a bike lane or not, it is their fault.

If you get ‘car doored’ you are within your rights as a valid road user to take their insurance details + license details. If they do not come forth with these details, call the police because a car accident has occurred and the other party has not followed their obligations as a road user.

Also highlight to them, if you were a car, they would not have a car door anymore. In such a case they would have to pay for the damage done to the car that was hit by their door.

4

Doored once on Brunswick St. The guy wanted me to pay damages to his precious Audi. As if. Twat.

5

12 at night, st kilda rd. i was doing about 35 or so down the hill, and the guy just opened his door and clipped my bars. i slid across the lanes a little, but i was ok, and the bike was ok. the dude was really nice, checked i was ok, asked if the bike was ok, didn’t seem at all concerned about his car, and all was good. i guess everyone should be so lucky.

6

I have luckily avoided being ‘doored’, but it has made me re-think what is a safe distance from a parked curb. I think, and will need some confirmation, that TC was doored by a copper…

PS: Andy was interviewed on television last night…watching the news and up he popped…

7

I’ve never been doored, but have come close on a number of occasions. I make it a habit to watch for drivers in parked cars and take the appropriate action if it looks like he/she is going to open the door without looking.

So what happened in the end?

Did the cops come and assign blame to the driver?

Des

8

once

bike lane

collins st

by the police

broken collarbone

thanks for nothing.

9

Pigs.

I was changing lanes on Hoodie St and as i headchecked, a driver pulled out in front of me then braked hard. Wrote off a nice old chrome track frame… not a straight tube in it now :cry: Guy wanted me to fix the dent in his boot.

No car doors. Once smacked a yong man on the hand as he tried to, in Chapel St.

10

And…

Details from one of you.

What about?

11

was doored about a month ago. riding along little edward in spring hill, taxi passes me, pulls sharply into a parking space leaving over a meter between him and the kurb and then opens the door without looking, right into me.
i was able to steer towards the car so i didn’t get cut in half. and i sort of pushed the bike behind me so all that hit the car was me. i broke a few ribs on the top of the door from where i hit but the car was basically undamaged.
asshole then proceeds to abuse the hell out of me for damaging his cab.
in these situations i tend to give people 30 seconds or so to get over the human shock reaction of anger, and by then they should be looking at apologising to me for what they have just done.
it’s about 45 seconds and this guy is really starting to wind up to fully angry and rude. the stream of language that was coming out of his sewer of a mouth was starting to get annoying and he’s waving a fist and shoving it at me, but when he threatens to beat the hell out of me, that’s about it.
i use one of the Abus armoured cable locks and wear it across it my chest where i can flick it out with one hand. and one of those does a hell of a lot of damage to a car. i started at the windshield and worked forward, then went all the way to the back of the car. the driver had jumped back in and managed to crunch both the front and the rear fenders on cars on either side, and then managed to almost side swipe a car pulling out.
end result was the whole drivers side of his cab totally destroyed, not one panel unthrashed, and the owners of the other cars looking for him for leaving the scene of an accident.
and the un-named messenger went about his business…

and don’t even get me started on the damn BCC buses…

12

Was your bike ok?

This guy was just trying to make enough money to live, just like you, but you own your bike and you aint gonna get sacked if its scratched. He certainly crossed the line with his treatment to you, but no harm was done? Perhaps calling the cops might have been a better idea… or giving yourself 30 seconds.

I wonder what the cabbie will think next time he sees a slow cyclist in ‘his’ lane?

13

aw c’mon, messengers are allowed to be grumpy :slight_smile:

  • Joel
14

I havn’t been car doored as such but i was “car’d” once.

Lygon street, on the t tracks, dude pulls a ubolt and i had ruffly 1 half of bugger all time to pull up. sorry bloke no can do, in the side of him we go. The little darlin was all thinking i was dead and stuff. Quick check of me, the bike and i’m good. SEE YA.

I think he was more affected than me. Bless his cotton socks.

15

I rode into a taxi driver once. He swung open his door, looked up Swanston St - pretty much directly at me, then gets out of his car and starts walking across the road with the door still open.

He went down.

16

Man, people expect us to be able to stop these crazy machines! Heh.

17

i saw the cabbie in town about a week ago. rode up next to him at the lights and he looked across at me. i waved at him and he VERY quickly wound up the window and drove off.
i gave him plenty of time to realise what he had done, i asked him to please be reasonable, and stop yelling at me, and i warned him 3 times to get his fist out of my face before something bad happened.
as far as i’m concerned, he had plenty of chances to be reasonable.
and the only reason my bike was ok was because i was able to get the bike behind me when it happened.
it could have been a lot worse, and with all due humility, it’s only practice and skill that didn’t see me laying traffic with my skull split.

18

Doored? Twice.

Once, Chapel st, I had just enough time to swerve, but the corner of the door caught my forearm and opened it up nicely.

Second time, worse, Punt Hill, peak hour, me splitting stopped traffic and the foot-high bluestone curb, and a passenger got out of the left-rear of a stopped car. I didn’t see it coming; all of a sudden, I was rolling down the footpath. It was rather surreal… I bounced and rolled and came to a stop in front of a pedestrian who happened to be a nurse. Meanwhile, the driver of the car had gotten out, seen that my handlebars had dented his door when they jackknifed, and started abusing me. Immediately thereafter, the driver of the car in front, who must have been watching the goings-on, got out of his car and started abusing the first driver. This second driver, apparently, was also a cyclist, and took issue with the fact that first driver was abusing me. (Funnily enough, I found out a few months later that this second driver was in fact my then-housemate’s cousin.) So, I sat on the footpath, in stunned bemusement, being attended to by an off-duty nurse, watching these two guys, toe-to-toe, yelling at each other.

Thankfully, I didn’t break anything; I ended up with some super gnarly gravel rash and a shitload of bruising. My front wheel was taco’d, so I walked half a block to Richmond Station and caught a train home, bleeding. The guy’s insurer (eventually) paid for replacement parts, which was nice.

19

What more confirmation do you need?! One of the dark blue vans…

Yes, I was on TV again, Current Affair.

20

riiiiiide intoooo theeeeee dangerzone…