Friday Schwag Grab, Gore Bike Wear Sportive: Everyone’s a winner

I think the suggestion is that everyone should look before they leap 🙈, it's not absolutely necessary to go dutch.

My main issue with only mentioning cyclists (rather than doing both at once) is the drivers who will argue its the riders fault (despite the law meaning they are liable regardless of best practice for riders) And the reality that you can't always allow 1m clearance. (1m clearance, both sides + width of bike = 2.6m minimum; Given margins of error, probably closer to 2.7-3m. And arguably should allow for a cargo bike that could be 1.5m wide.) Unless we start saying obstruction by illegal parking happens if there is less than 3.5m clear space, probably more it isn't always possible to allow 1m clearance from parked car doors. (Plenty of residential areas have tighter parking than this). We would also need to start prosecuting a good chunk of overtakes near parked cars to allow space to manouvre...

Unfortunately many drivers will just drive at you or force an overtake pushing you closer to parked cars. Much like the cyclists paradox of simultaneously riding like a speed crazed demon and being too slow, tgere is the paradox of riding too close to parked cars or the edge of the road and not being far enough over.

That example illustrated by the police (ie. 1.5m from centre of bike) is, & always has been, wrong. 🤬 The 0.75m from the car to centre of bike shown in the link is stupid, 0.75m from the kerb is also nonsense. The bike & rider are probably somewhere between 0.5 & 0.7m wide.

Re having extra locks put on bikes, I once had someone lock their (crap) bike to mine at Brighton station. The Brighton transport police dealt with it in around ten minutes, cutting through the other lock and taking the other bike with them. Police can sort these extra locks quickly if the mood takes them.

A large amount of my cycling is through rural villages. In many of these I have to overtake parked cars or delivery vans as the housing and shops are 18th / 19th century or older and have no provision for off road parking. Better public transport would certainly reduce the amount of cars, but I don't think it's feasible to eliminate them.

@Rendel But these groups overlap. Sure, people who cycle regularly are probably more likely to look out for cyclists when exiting a vehicle, but perhaps only if they have been doored themselves (or had a near miss). After all, many people cycle in the dooring zone even though 100% of those people will have been in a car, van etc. It's not about groups. People exiting cars and vans look out for vehicles by expecting to see a part of the vehicle a couple of metres out from the vehicle they're exiting, because that's what happens 99% of the time. Unless someone is riding a bike a couple of metres away from the parked car/van then they won't be in the 'expected' place. That's the whole point of the Dutch reach - it forces you to look around further than you would normally, so you spot cyclists.

I hope I look as fit and healthy as Georges Ronsse when I'm seventy-six. Sorry, what? TWENTY-six, you say...??!

The problem is that if they've got a limited amount of time/space to get out a message, surely it's better to use that to warn drivers/passengers about the liability of carelessly opening a car door?

@mdavidford, I wasn't aware that you could exit a bike.