Dutch reach: open driver-side door with opposite hand

Chuchote

Michael Charney, a retired doctor in Cambridge, Massachusetts, is promoting the "Dutch Reach" - where a driver should open the driver-side door with the hand opposite to the door. This method, employed in the Netherlands and other cyclist-friendly countries, means that you turn your body and look to the road automatically before opening the door.

https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2016/09/08/this-cyclist-wants-drivers-dutch-reach/V2Ei5bEiOCfU6ubxX1r8VN/story.html

He launched his campaign after a woman was killed when a driver threw open the door of his Jeep in front of her as she cycled by, throwing her into traffic.

Edit: this post and thread title were edited to make it clearer

Grolschevik

I presume in the Irish and British context that's 'left hand' and 'look right'.

Or, you know, if you're going to train yourself to use your other hand to open the door, you could just train yourself to look behind you before opening it...

As an aside, I can open my door with either hand without having to turn my body.

Chuchote

Grolschevik wrote: »

I presume in the Irish and British context that's 'left hand' and 'look right'.

Or, you know, if you're going to train yourself to use your other hand to open the door, you could just train yourself to look behind you before opening it...

As an aside, I can open my door with either hand without having to turn my body.

It is the driving-on-the-left context shared by, actually, a slightly larger number of countries than right-driving.

I salute your ability to be able to look behind you without turning your body. Are you an owl?

Grolschevik

Chuchote wrote:

I salute your ability to be able to look behind you without turning your body. Are you an owl?

Re-read.

Carawaystick

I presume he's in Cambridge Massachusetts, rather than Cambridge, England.

I'd imagine you'ld spend more time looking for the handle than looking for oncoming traffic reaching across your body to open the door.

Chuchote

Ack, you're absolutely right, of course it's the left hand drivers should be using in right-hand-drive countries. Sorry, spatially challenged, me; I'll re-edit the thread title and first post.

Vic_08

The sort of people that swing their door open without checking are not the sort that will bother learning a new technique to assist the safety of others because they are pig ignorant to begin with.

Besides there is a new-fangled invention that renders this redundant, it's called a wing mirror.

Chuchote

Vic_08 wrote: »

The sort of people that swing their door open without checking are not the sort that will bother learning a new technique to assist the safety of others because they are pig ignorant to begin with.

Besides there is a new-fangled invention that renders this redundant, it's called a wing mirror.

Dunno, I think it's more lack of attention than pigignorance. Like the guy in a line of traffic coming up Kenilworth Park today who suddenly indicated and swerved left to park as I was sailing up the inside of the cars as cyclists are normally expected to do. I braked hard and he whizzed in to where I would have been seconds later.

As I cycled past him on the right, staring to see why the hell he'd done such an incautious thing I saw that he was on the phone; must have swung in to park to answer it (right), grabbed it to answer it as he did so (wrong) and simultaneously turned and indicated (wrong) while failing to look for cyclists or pedestrians (wrong). He undoubtedly didn't even know that he'd endangered my life, and I'm sure he was a nice guy who just didn't think.