Near Miss of the Day 219: Near-dooring shows need for Dutch Reach

It wasn’t long after we published our story this morning on Transport for Greater Manchester urging car occupants to use the Dutch Reach technique – which encourages people to look over their shoulder to check for approaching cyclists before opening the door – before an email arrived with a video clip showing why it is so badly needed.

It was sent in by road.cc reader James who was almost the victim of a dooring on Deansgate in Manchester city centre last December.

Luckily, he managed to take evasive action and was on his way, with his shout of “Dickhead!” ringing in the ears of the driver who had opened the car door in his path.

> Near Miss of the Day turns 100 - Why do we do the feature and what have we learnt from it?

Over the years road.cc has reported on literally hundreds of close passes and near misses involving badly driven vehicles from every corner of the country – so many, in fact, that we’ve decided to turn the phenomenon into a regular feature on the site. One day hopefully we will run out of close passes and near misses to report on, but until that happy day arrives, Near Miss of the Day will keep rolling on.

If you’ve caught on camera a close encounter of the uncomfortable kind with another road user that you’d like to share with the wider cycling community please send it to us at info [at] road.cc or send us a message via the road.cc Facebook page.

If the video is on YouTube, please send us a link, if not we can add any footage you supply to our YouTube channel as an unlisted video (so it won't show up on searches).

Please also let us know whether you contacted the police and if so what their reaction was, as well as the reaction of the vehicle operator if it was a bus, lorry or van with company markings etc.

> What to do if you capture a near miss or close pass (or worse) on camera while cycling