happened around noon today.
(Photos: Tony Tapay)
We’ve been reporting on N. Williams Avenue a lot lately. Along with being a vital north-south bike route, it also serves a burgeoning, bike-oriented commercial district. It’s one of the busiest bikeways in all of Portland yet it currently has only a five foot bike lane to handle all the traffic (parked cars get 15 feet in some stretches).
A few minutes ago, reader Tony Tapay witnessed a dooring incident on Williams just north of N. Failing Street. Here’s another photo of both parties exchanging information and the victim being attended to by emergency medical crews:
Dooring on Williams (and other streets with similar lane configurations) is not uncommon. Back in November 2008, someone was fed up being doored on Williams and resorted to street graffiti to warn others.
These incidents merely underscore the need for more breathing room for bikes on our roads.
There’s reason to be hopeful that the Williams bikeway will be vastly improved in the months to come. But in the meantime, the issue of providing adequate space for the large amount of people who bike there remains.
Thanks for reading.
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You are correct. 15 feet is just not enough room. It needs to be 20 feet. When one opens their car door to exit you just don’t expect some dude on a bike to drive right into it. You would think they would be paying attention but then again they don’t pay for much of anything else. I hope the biker has insurance.
I often get asked by my non-biking acquaintances and friends why us cyclist think we have to ride to as far left as possible in a bike lane. I tell them why for this very reason and usually they understand.
I hope the cyclist is going to be fine and will just walk away with a bruise and a scrape. Be safe!
A driver needs time to open and get out in a manner that gives an oncoming cyclist enough time to see the door and to safely stop. Sadly, few drivers actually understand the implications of road speed cyclists.
At 20mph, a cyclists is going 30 feet/sec. For safety, a driver needs at least a 5 second window to open a car door which correlates to a 150 feet of distance.
“You would think they would be paying attention but then again they don’t pay for much of anything else.”
Take your trolling somewhere else! I pay for plenty!
Tony,
Although cars should be given some room to open their doors, it is their responsibility to check their mirrors before opening their door. The fault falls on the door-opener.
In order to give more room for parked cars, they should remove a vehicle lane or space that is reserved for parked cars (they park on both sides of the street).
I ride and drive on this street all the time and can attest that there is no need for two vehicle lanes.
If there was just one car lane, a cycletrack, and two sides of the street to park on, these conflicts could be alleviated without sacraficing neighborhood parking.
…and this is one of the reasons why I just cut over to Rodney.
Also, has anyone else noticed that cars are parking in the “bike lane” on the segment of Williams that is being repaved?
Tony, you are right. Getting hit at 40mph from behind by 1 ton of metal is better than 15-0mph into a car door.
People on bikes can only be so attentive to this potential hazard. It is the person in the parked vehicle who has the legal responsibility:
https://www.oregonlaws.org/ors/811.490
A person commits the offense of improper opening or leaving open a vehicle door if the person opens any door of a vehicle unless and until it is reasonably safe to do so and it can be done without interference with the movement of traffic, or with pedestrians and bicycles on sidewalks or shoulders.
Tony #1:
“You would think they would be paying attention but then again they don’t pay for much of anything else. I hope the biker has insurance.”
Yeah, how about the driver in the car pays attention before they fling open their door? You know, use all those mirrors that come pre-attached to the vehicle to do such a thing.
If you have someone open a car door RIGHT in front of you, there isn’t much you can do to miss it.
I hope the DRIVER has insurance, because they should be the one to pay, as they opened the door into a travel lane, presumably without looking.
I always look before I get out of my car, and as a consequence have never had a cyclist or driver hit my door. Seems pretty simple to me.
I saw someone’s bike get run over in the same spot (they were working on it in a parking spot or something) out the window from pix a few days ago. I think this ‘burgeoning’ area along Williams needs to have cycletrack treatment set up so that people on bikes don’t have to deal with retail traffic messing with their lives. That and a double-wide bike lane should just about do it.
Mr. Columbo,
Looks like you’ve got a candidate for letter of the week in the Oregonian Opinion section there.
Don’t feed the trolls.
While Williams is the most direct route to where I live in inner NE, I NEVER take it. Waaay too dangerous. There are a ton of safer alternative routes.
Just to be clear, I did not witness the incident, just the aftermath.
Jim-
While I agree that there are a bunch of ‘lower car traffic’ routes, I completely disagree with you on safety. tons of folks take this route every day with positive health outcomes.
I must confess that a couple of years ago I almost doored a biker. I am a regular biker, conscious of the dooring problem and I almost nailed a fellow biker. Admittedly this was a non-standard situation where I was the passenger in a car and the bike lane was on the left side. I had forgotten that a bike lane existed where we had stopped. The shame! Let me tell you.
The lesson I took from this was not to be too quick to judge and that there is still a collective bike/car learning curve with bike lanes. Hopefully over the past few years this problem has diminished somewhat as car drivers get more used to bike lanes. It’ll probably never go away but over time it may get better. Less hate, more educate.
p.s. That “DOOR ZONE” guerrilla graffiti did a lot of good (back when it was more visible.) Maybe more is called for?
State law says it’s the driver’s responsibility to make sure it is clear before opening a door in traffic.
Based on the statute, the driver is at fault in any dooring.
Electronic interlocks on doors so that they cannot be opened on the road side.
Mandatory 5 second audible warning, on sidewalk side, before door can be opened on to sidewalk.
Or car users can just pay attention.
I wish they would but trust that they will not.
A Lamborghini never seems to have this problem. Neither does the car from Back to the Future. There are kits to do this on regular cars. Alternatively, one can install one of those deer guards seen on big trucks and police cruisers. Also, splatter shields.
More space in the bike lane would be a good thing – 100% agree, however, I’ve also noticed how careless people in Portland are when opening their care doors on the driver side. In other major cities, you cannot get away with not being hyper aware of approaching street traffic while opening your car door. While driving and riding, I’ve had so many close calls with car doors in Portland.
I would like to see some sort of ad campaign… similar to the “door zone” graffiti, but more visible to drivers. Maybe stick it on the back of our busses, run a couple commercials on radio stations and TV stations, a couple billboards and maybe print a bunch of stickers to pass out to people(similar to “share the road”). I think this would do a lot to raise awareness about dooring.
re comment 19, you open the door on a delorean into a bike lane, someone gonna get clotheslined. i often take williams, spend almost zero time in the bike lane.
Some signs in that section of willams that say something to the effect of “Check before opening your door. Its the Law”
Yeahhhhhhhhhhhh Tony….
I was the bicycle rider. Glad I didn’t bash my head but came away with a severely broken hand and a bruised collar bone. I make a living using my hands, I hope the surgeon can fix me with some hardware.
It hurts like hell!
Did the victim have lights on his bike? Not trying to place blame- I want to know if added visibility could have prevented the accident.
For all of those advocating Rodney as an alternative – are you kidding? Tons of stop signs and inattentive drivers at the uncontrolled intersections. I have more close calls on the residential streets than I do anywhere else on my commute.
I’m a big believer in safety in numbers. If you consider how many cyclists are taking Williams every day, it’s very safe (but a cycletrack would be even safer!). And the more cyclists there are, the more likely motorists will remember we’re there.
http://www.green-wheels.org/node/695
It’s the person in the car who has the legal responsibility, but there is a way to substantially reduce the risk of being doored if you are a cyclist.
There are a lot of urban cyclists that have an allergy to decent road lights. Not playing the blame game, but cyclists have got to give drivers a reasonable chance to see them.
but this incident happened during the day–not sure a flood light and Rev. Phil’s siren bike would have made a difference.
airzound will save your life…goes up to 80 psi. find it at your local bike gallery or where fine bike products are sold. your life is worth 25 bux
Sharrows (replacing the mandatory bike lane) would allow us to ride
properly.
…older municipal codes used to have the requirement for drivers and passengers to always exit the car to the kerb side for safety purposes…too bad the bench seat went the way of the 8 track player!
Though for rear passengers they could again be required to exit kerb side (except if a disability restricts that) for road safety purposes – just to reduce the chance of blocking the bike lane or child passengers exposure to traffic.
I guess the prime question…is why does the city have parking along much of this street when it can cause a traffic safety problem…especially when on-street parking is [likely] not a protected use of street space outside of retail zones in Portland…most homes is this corridor have garages or rear alley access (my memory)…
…if a traffic policy were adopted to consolidate both side retail parallel parking to one side back-in parking with the bike lane on the other side of the road (or as a bike track). The separation of the parking from the bike traffic would be ideal on the downhill portions of this couplet route due to the speed differential between parked cars and fast bikes.
Yes there would be complaints that those with parking on the other side of the street would have to cross the street to park/ unpark…this change would have to be integrated with frequent and accessible pedestrian crossings. A win win of sorts.
I think there’s a perceptual problem amongst many people whose only mode of transit is the auto. They tend not to view the bike lane as a legitimate travel lane, on par with a motorized vehicle travel lane. It’s as if they see it as some “extra space” there for their benefit. This problem leads not just to dooring, but blocking the lane. I see that all the time, especially on busy streets like NE Broadway, where people regularly pull into the bike lane (blocking it) while waiting to make a turn, or block it while waiting to leave a parking space and merge into auto traffic. This is behavior people would rarely engage in with regard to an auto lane, because they do see that as a travel lane and they tend to be conscientious about respecting its status.
#6: Yup. I take Rodeny these days because frankly Williams has become a cluster since all the cars started parking in what used to be the bike lane.
#25: I KNOW how you feel because I’ve been there. May, 1997: Door prize, concussion, broken hand, three months of missed work, all of it.
Yes, it’s a MASSIVE hassle; Yes, I’m certain it hurts like hell; and yes, you’ll get through it.
Follow the instructions from your doctor and PT; get a lawyer; surround yourself with helpful family and friends and above all give your body the time it will need to heal. You have my sympathy and support.
But the standard oversized bike lane puts the buffer next to traffic.
As stated before the greater hazard is next to the parked cars. That’s the part of the road used to enter and exit the vehicle, and drivers do pull their nose out into the lane to get a better vies of what is coming up behind them.
The buffer should be next to the parked cars, they are the primary hazard to bike lane users, not the traffic.
The basic problem is with the car regardless of the lane width, though a wider lane would really help. I very frequently have cars open doors when I am driving my car. Have not hit any yet, but drivers in Portland seem to be developing a bad habit of opening doors into traffic with any regard to what is coming. With an important passage like this, a wider lane is the best answer.
Although my flickr pool doesn’t regard dooring, it does involve blocking the bike lane:
http://www.flickr.com/groups/1432082@N21/
Please add your own photos!
Back in the day, when I drove a car, I always looked before opening a car door if I was parked on a street! It just seems like common sense.
I do think there needs to be some major public education (billboards/trimet posters/ radio spots/ tv ads/ small sections on local news)on the responsibility of the driver to check the lanes of travel before opening their car door. I travel on Hawthorne when driving (riding, i much prefer to go on Salmon) and frequently see people almost loosing their car door as they fling it open with no reguard to what is behind them. Most people in Portland seem to think it is the duty of the traffic to stop for their car door.
In response to #37, I have to agree that door etiquette has gone downhill. I regularly see people deliberately ignore oncoming traffic of all kinds, as if not looking will somehow make it OK. But, it being Portland, there can be a Portland twist. I had someone smile at me, with daughter on the Trailabike, and open her door right in front of us with oncoming traffic and cars behind. Total cluelessness. It’s as if they think their actions have nothing to do with anyone.