It is realistic to expect motorists to look before they open their doors because it poses a real risk of serious injury. A much greater risk, in my view, than most instances in which a motorist exercising reasonable caution engages in moderate speeding or runs a red light. The problem is that motorists think that speeding and red-light running is the more serious violation than opening the door without looking, because they don’t see it from the bicyclist’s perspective, and cops never ticket them for dooring.

Someone should file a FOIL request to get the police report on this collision.

Quit alienating the livable streets supporters who also pack heat.

I’m the most consistently antipolice poster on Streetsblog. I implied none of the above; only that you’re beating a dead horse. Next someone’s gonna point out that you can’t bail a separated lane when it’s blocked, or an effective cyclist is gonna say you should be in traffic like a car if you’re riding at all, and then we’ll have a derailed thread on our hands.

Sweet strawman though, textbook execution.

Very good points, aliostuni. You guys can be a little inconsistent here – on a site where every single auto driver is assumed to be in a state of perpetual law-breaking, to quote a statute that says people have to make sure the lane is clear before opening the door is just laughable. So they’ll break all the laws but this one, and no bicyclist relegated to the bike lane has ever been doored?

Oh, but we should ride slower so it’s safer, right? So on a road where we could ride with traffic in absence of a bike lane, doing 20 mph, in the presence of a bike lane now we should have to ride 5-8 mph so we can stop in time should someone swing a door open? I find it hard to believe a cyclist would actually espouse such nonsense.

VTL 1214: ‘No person shall open the door of a motor vehicle on the side available to moving traffic unless and until it is reasonably safe to do so, and can be done without interfering with the movement of other traffic, nor shall any person leave a door open on the side of a vehicle available to moving traffic for a period of time longer than necessary to load or unload passengers.’

What would the charge be if she were to receive a summons?

WUT.

Painted lanes in dooring range put cyclists at risk of dooring – if they within dooring range. Riding slow-ish and being observant is enough to keep it from happening. Protected lanes or no lanes mentality isn’t realistic, and fails to consider lanes like Prince Street, West 10th Street, and other curbside painted lanes around the city.

Also, you could argue that all the emergency vehicles in this photo are parked in a manner that is dangerous to cyclists. But that would be really annoying. Emergencies are emergencies, and when you see a police car in the bike lane, you should be prepared to give the benefit of the doubt and just SLOW DOWN. When you see the cops having a lunch break right nearby, then you’ve got great reason to be annoyed.

The manner in which the cyclist rides into traffic because of the patrol car is up to the individual cyclist. They don’t have to do it in an unpredictable manner, especially since they can see it from practically Cumming Street!

If you beat a dead horse enough, it arises as a zombie horse.

Kaja, very astute observations there.

The problem is the cops. Changing their conveyance won’t engender any sympathy from them. They’re unsympathetic because they’re basically a protected class, and as such have different incentives, motivations.

The answer lies in rolling back the militarization of the police, and also in separating ‘support for ‘our boys in blue’ from the concept of good citizenship.

Someday it will become acceptable in polite society to hate cops. White folks over thirty just don’t get it yet; they see it as a mark of criminality or a lack of class. Confronted with videotaped police brutality (for instance), they spout excuses.

When I was in Philadelphia for protests surrounding the 2000 Republican National Convention Police Commissioner Timony had cops on bikes for crowd control. Officers were trained to line up and use their bikes as a moveable barricade as well as defend themselves against over excited protestors. That’s part of police training – not the kind of tactic officers are supposed to use spontaneously.

That is, do officers do a 6-month stint in a patrol car, a few months in the little tripod car, motorcycle, and bicycle?

I think it would benefit nypd/cyclist relations greatly and certainly affect the way nypd react to crashes if cops had to do a 3 week rotation on bike a few times a year.