someone being dropped off at uni and opened the passenger door into the bike lane.
i was in a fair bit of pain and yelling at the driver who told me to ‘calm down, it’s not that big a deal’ and that i was ok and then promptly drove off.
I mentioned to this turd that the last time someone did this to me I ended up with broken ribs(not true) and a fucked up bike(100% true) and that their exasperated sorry wasn’t good enough.
I had a fat parking inspector kick his door wide open in hawthorn one year bent the door right around, council paid up. but they never pay for the blood and skin you have to factor that into the quotes
Careful when you go to swerve around car doors. A guy I grew up with (I didn’t know him well, but knew his brother) was killed last week when a car opened it’s door on Glenferrie Rd. He swerved to miss it, collided with a garbage truck and was killed. Only 22. Horrible.
I was about to mention this incident, this kind of careless shit makes my blood boil. I live near Glenferrie road and ride on it quite a lot - there are some fucking seawards of drivers there, so many fucking porsbmwcedes “4x4’s”.
I reckon it could be safer to ride into the door than to swerve - you may end up with a broken front end, but its better than what might be driving behind you.
If its inner city, use the lane up, only safe way to ride, make the driver know your there and go around you, it may piss them off but better to hold up traffic for a block than end up broken and bloody.
After reading some posts on car doors i wouldnt take my chances with a door, if you hit it wrong you may end up with any number of life long injuries.
the reverse situation, though, is peak hour in the city, when the cars are queued up and the quickest way is straight down the door zone. i’ve nearly been cleaned up there a few times. passengers in the back of taxis can be the hardest to predict.
Fuck riding within the ‘car door zone’. I’ve never been hit but I’ve had to many near misses to count. I always take the lane. Not matter what fucking hair gel wearing Mercedes convertible driving douche bag is honking his horn behind me.
Even though it sounds more dangerous I normally ride straight down the middle of the two lanes / on the tram tracks. Just gotta look for peds since they aren’t looking for you there, but you are out of the way of car doors. Also look for cabs doing a sneaky hook turn, I got cleaned up completely by one once.
you can’t really win, cos even with the bike lane sectioned off on the curb side of parked cars (e.g. the start of swanston st) you still get into strife because peds don’t seem to recognize it as part of the road. The number of times i have almost cleaned up large groups of uni students…
youve got it easy. Im in osaka at the moment and bikes ride on the right side of the road. Not only do you have to watch out for car doors but also on coming traffic! I just got run into by some guy riding on the wrong side of the road. First time ive had a go at someone who couldnt understand me. At least if made me feel a little better.
got clipped by a door the other week. i saw it coming and managed to swerve enough so that it only just clipped my left thigh. i was late for work so i just picked myself up off the ground jumped back on and pedalled away with out even speaking to the driver. the look on his face was fuckin priceless. woke up next morning and could hardly bend my leg. lol
This happened to me with a bunch of Japanese tourists outside NGV one day. Huge group of them just walked straight out onto the road looking for their bus, I took down between half a dozen to a dozen of them and didn’t even get a scratch.
