Backlash as road safety group tells cyclists to leave one metre when passing parked cars “to avoid being hit if a door is opened” — but riders in disbelief at advice not telling motorists to use Dutch Reach and look properly + more on the live blog
SUMMARY
Backlash as road safety group tells cyclists to leave one metre when passing parked cars "to avoid being hit if a door is opened" — but riders in disbelief at advice not telling motorists to use Dutch Reach and look properly
Kent Road Safety, a group associated with the county’s council which “strives to reduce life-changing and life-ending events on our roads”, shared the picture above with some advice for what to do when approaching parked cars or exiting parked vehicles.
The road safety organisation explained: “Cyclists, when passing parked vehicles, leave one metre (or a door’s width) to avoid being hit if a car door is opened.”
Now, at this point you might be expecting some similar advice to drivers and car passengers, for example, look before flinging your door into oncoming traffic, or use the Dutch Reach (as advised by the Highway Code) to open your door with the hand furthest away, thus turning to see better what you’re opening your door into.
Unfortunately for Kent Road Safety’s comments section, the advice ended after the first sentence, the post making zero mention of any responsibility for road users, other than for cyclists to keep themselves safe.
That’s a bit surprising considering, as per specialist personal injury law firm Osbornes: “It is criminal offence for a driver or anyone else in the vehicle to open (or allow to be opened) any vehicle door if it would injure someone or put people in danger (Regulation 105 of The Road Vehicles (Construction and Use) Regulations 1986).”
“The Highway Code (updated in 2022) has enhanced protection for cyclists. For example, motorists “MUST ensure you do not hit anyone when you open your door. Check for cyclists or other traffic” (Rule 239). For several years, drivers have also been encouraged by campaigners to utilise the Dutch Reach technique to reduce the risk of dooring incidents. This was incorporated into the new Highway Code.
“The Dutch Reach technique is simple: drivers should use their far hand to reach across and open the door. This means drivers need to turn their body towards the door – increasing the likelihood of seeing any approaching cyclist or other road user.”
Perhaps Kent Road Safety should check in with the legal experts before the next post… or just read the comments section under this post…
Ed Thomas: “Motorists and passengers, look before opening your doors, there, sorted it for you.”
Philip Lynch: “No, it is down to the car driver or passenger to look before they opens their door.”
Malcom Turner: “As a cyclist I do this because most people don’t understand the change to the Highway Code which brought in the ‘Dutch Reach’ rule.”
Stuart Helmer: “And, drivers: remember it is a *specific criminal offence* to open a car door in a way that endangers other people.”
Cycling MotoGP star filmed overtaking cars on descent criticised by Lidl-Trek after viral clip attracts controversy
Your thoughts on Kent Road Safety's door zone advice
Boopop: “I don’t think telling cyclists to avoid the door zone is problematic, but yes drivers should be educated to always check behind before opening. I’d still always avoid the door zone however.”
Mr Blackbird: “I agree. Both measures are important. I would never trust a driver to look before opening the door, but there are times when there isn’t room for a metre gap. Similarly, I never assume that drivers have seen me when they are about to pull onto roundabout, while I am coming round it.”
mctrials23: “It’s a balance. If you only tell the victims to compensate for the aggressor then nothing changes for the better. If you don’t tell the victim to mitigate the risk, people get hurt because drivers don’t give a shit and know that the law doesn’t either.”
mdavidford: “And neither is a real solution – to really change things for the better we need to design out spaces that put moving cyclists alongside parked cars in the first place.”
A picture to smugly look at now it's sunny in the UK
pedaling at minus 18 degrees Celsius
by
u/sorin1972 in
wintercycling
Strade Bianche’s on the telly this weekend and the sun’s out. What more could you want?
British Cycling offers two-year update on efforts to rejuvenate domestic racing
British Cycling has published a two-year update on the Elite Road Taskforce, a project undertaken to improve the domestic racing scene in the UK.
The governing body believes there has been “significant progress”, including rider surveys, tweaks to the race calendar and exploration of a new approach to coverage.
One area British Cycling was especially keen to highlight was the availability of an Event Organisers Playbook, now “available to event organisers, to share good practice and develop understanding on how to organise and deliver a successful cycling event”.
CEO Jon Dutton said: “Good progress has been made in line with the recommendations of the Elite Road Taskforce back in 2023, and we can see real improvements across the road racing scene, but acknowledge there are still challenges brought by several factors.
“The Event Organisers Playbook and brand toolkit provide our community with quality resources to elevate and promote their events, a key recommendation from the Task Force when it was first launched. The rider survey feedback has been incredibly useful to gain insight and embed into our day-to-day practices.
“The Lloyds Tour of Britain Women and Men’s races continue to flourish with a record number of riders and teams in the women’s event in 2025, while our pursuit to modernise the sport continues to move at a pace with lots of collaboration through specific initiatives, ‘project competition’ and digital transformation which will help make competitive cycling more accessible and enjoyable.
“Cycling across all disciplines is developing year-on-year, so some areas will take longer to embed, or have been absorbed into the day-to-day operation of our delivery as we continue to support and grow the sport, which is one of our key strategic pillars.”
"I'll pop back next week, yeah?"
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“We can’t expect him to follow Tadej at the Tour of Flanders”: Visma-Lease a Bike urge caution after Matthew Brennan’s classics breakthrough – but believe British wonderkid can win cycling’s biggest races
Cyclists' Alliance union launches crowdfunder and warns "without immediate financial support, we will not be able to continue our work"
The Cyclists’ Alliance has launched a crowdfunder on GoFundMe, admitting that it faces “a funding crisis”.
“Without immediate financial support, we will not be able to continue our work,” the union’s president Grace Brown wrote.
“Since 2017, The Cyclists’ Alliance has made huge strides to improve women’s cycling, including:
- Campaigning for key equal rights, including minimum salaries and maternity rights
- Supported nearly 100 young women making the steps to being a pro with our annual Mentor Programme
- Supported more than 400 riders with dedicated free legal advice on their working rights
PROPER cycling
Belgian racer Georges Ronsse enjoys a snack during 1932 Tour de France, in which he won Stage 4.
Happy #BicycleBirthday, Georges!
March 4 (1906-1969)— Cool Bike Art (@coolbikeart1.bsky.social) 4 March 2026 at 17:09
"It is a known tactic": Lancaster police warn of bike thieves' lock method
You live blog regulars will probably be well aware of this but bike thieves sometimes like to add an extra lock to a potential victim’s ride. It’s often mistaken for an innocent error from another rider, but police in Lancaster have told locals they’ve seen evidence of thieves deliberately doing this to come back and steal bikes later on.
PCSO Mark Wood said: “It is a known tactic for thieves to place their own lock on an unattended bicycle, hoping the owner will leave the bike overnight or abandon it, allowing the thief to return later and steal it at their convenience.”
The force advised riders to not leave their bike if an extra lock was placed on it, instead they suggest phoning the police and ask for advice or assistance. We’d be somewhat sceptical of your chances of getting said assistance, but that’s just what the force is saying…
British Cycling Chair Frank Slevin to step down following bowel cancer diagnosis
British Cycling announced the governing body’s Independent Chair Frank Slevin, who has held the role for eight years, is to step down following a recent bowel cancer diagnosis.
Naturally, Slevin’s priority is his health and family, British Cycling wishing him well during his treatment and recovery.
British Cycling said Slevin’s direction brought about major enhancements to medical governance and athlete welfare.
“It has been an incredible honour and privilege to have been afforded the opportunity to Chair the wonderful organisation that is British Cycling for the past eight years,” Slevin reflected.
“I would like to thank the passionate staff and volunteers in particular, who work tirelessly to serve our members and partners and who have made my role as Chair so rewarding.
“It has been an incredible journey since the Cycling Independent Review. We should be enormously proud of the fact that we have established British Cycling as an exemplar for how national governing bodies in sport can not only continue to win Olympic, Paralympic and World Championship medals in unprecedented numbers, but can also deliver for our members, create real social impact across the Home Nations and be governed with professionalism and integrity.
“I am deeply saddened to be leaving before my tenure naturally comes to an end later in the year, but I know British Cycling has never been stronger, more focused on its purpose nor better led and I am confident that the transition to my successor will be managed with aplomb.”
Anti-terrorism barriers set to prevent cyclists from using pedestrianised Oxford Street, under latest TfL plans
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If you're not trying to escape from wild animals, what would be the advantage of putting a tent on top of a car, rather than setting up a similar tent on the ground? Seems rather unnecessary to me - even if the price was comparable, I would choose a ground-based version.
"you can’t pass a law saying it’s illegal not to have a speedometer if you’re going to go above the speed limit." I don't think this would be a good idea, nor even speed limits (and presumably mandatory speedometers everywhere) ... ... but is there any theoretical legal impediment to that? Or even simply enacting a law that cyclists are not permitted to ride faster on roads than the motor vehicle speed limit (or some other limit) and leaving it up to cyclists how they go about complying with that? (Not a lawyer not a legal theorist though...)
What has KE to do with it? If you are hit by a large object you don't absorb all its KE. Being hit by a car is no better than being hit by a bus at the same speed. What matters is how much acceleration you experience.
@Robert Hardy 20mph isn't as fast as you seem to think, this 57-year-old-not-that-fit rider can easily achieve it on the flat in still conditions and most averagely fit people can on a decent bike. The argument that it wouldn't be a problem to impose speed limits on cyclists because those who can achieve 20mph already have speedometers is an entirely specious one, firstly as I've said a huge number of people can achieve 20mph, not just Garmin-obsessed racers, and secondly you would have to make speedometers compulsory for everyone on a bike, you can't pass a law saying it's illegal not to have a speedometer if you're going to go above the speed limit. How many cycling incidents are caused by supposedly excessive speed? It wasn't a factor in this case, the cyclist would still have hit her if he'd been doing 15mph or even 10mph. Charlie Alliston was under the car speed limit. It's a non-issue and only of interest to those seeking yet another stick with which to beat cyclists.
(Usual reference to speed being the major issue as kinetic energy goes up with the square of velocity / much greater braking distances required etc)
@mdavidford steady on - an 80kg cyclist on a 20kg bike would only need to be doing a little over 89mph to have the same kinetic energy as a 2 ton car at 20mph. So same ballpark, really...
Yes, although it may be telling us as much about decision fixation as it is about the impact of such statements. By asking them about their plans before viewing the adverts, they primed those who said they would consider an SUV to ignore or rationalise away information that pointed against that decision. Ideally, they would have had additional cohorts that were not asked in advance and therefore not committed to a position, for comparison.
"in --substantial-- slight excess of a speed limit considered to offer reasonable safety to vulnerable road users *from two tonne metal boxes*." FTFY
I think we have forgotten that cars do way more damage and we still haven’t got a comprehensive-lasting solution to deal with dangerous drivers
56 thoughts on “Backlash as road safety group tells cyclists to leave one metre when passing parked cars “to avoid being hit if a door is opened” — but riders in disbelief at advice not telling motorists to use Dutch Reach and look properly + more on the live blog”
I don’t think telling cyclists to avoid the door zone is problematic, but yes drivers should be educated to always check behind before opening.
I’d still always avoid the door zone however.
I agree. Both measures are important.
I would never trust a driver to look before opening the door, but there are times when there isn’t room for a meter gap.
Similarly, I never assume that drivers have seen me when they are about to pull onto roundabout, while I am coming round it.
Damned if you do and damned if you don’t! If you do, you’ll be ‘close passed’, honked at, cursed at, and told to use the &^%$!! bike path! Drivers ‘might’ glance slightly over their shoulder —- maybe, before throwing the door open! I even had one guy throw open his door with a cake in one hand, coffee in the other and his phone cradled under his chin! I’ve had so many near misses I can’t count!
as it gets warmer I will be taking some novice adult riders out on the road; I know I will end up hoarse from shouting, “Move out”, Move out”, “F***n Move Out” every time they pass a row of parked cars. Moan about Kent Road Safety not mention the responsibilities of those in the car as much as you like, however I prefer doing whatever I can to be safe.
Its a balance. If you only tell the victims to compensate for the aggressor then nothing changes for the better. If you don’t tell the victim to mitigate the risk, people get hurt because drivers don’t give a shit and know that the law doesn’t either.
And neither is a real solution – to really change things for the better we need to design out spaces that put moving cyclists alongside parked cars in the first place.
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.
Pretty much nowhere /couldn’t/ have provision for off-road parking, we just haven’t prioritised it. It might involve people having to walk a little way to access their vehicle, which current car-oriented society finds it impossible to get it’s collective head around.
@MDF Not sure about that, I live in an inner London neighbourhood almost exclusively comprised of Victorian houses with front gardens that couldn’t accommodate a bubble car; the only way you could provide any offstreet parking within at least a mile of my house would be to pave over public parks, which is obviously and rightly not going to happen. In areas like this the best way of dealing with the problem of on street parking is to persuade as many people as possible that it’s no longer necessary or desirable to have cars by providing the carrots of improved public transport and active travel infrastructure and the stick of greatly increased parking fees and congestion charges. When land in London costs many thousands of pounds per square metre it’s ludicrous that a car owner can obtain about eight square metres of it on which to store their private property for nothing, or at most for about £15 a month for a council parking permit.
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?
yup, absolutely use a metre or more clearance when passing parked cars. on most roads with on-street parking or with vehicles parked in the ‘cycle lane / death gutter’, that’ll position me in a vehicle drivers forward FOV rather than peripheral — the perceptual difference between being an obstacle to pass and an obstruction to wait behind.
It would be more useful to explain to drivers why cyclists need to leave 1m as they pass parked cars so they don’t get annoyed and try to pass unsafely.
Even the police don’t understand this. See the photo in the following article which shows how police scotland view the issue.
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.
If you are going to make the point about cyclists riding at least 1 metre from parked cars you also need to having something explaining that fact to drivers, who often get annoyed when you aren’t hugging a long line of parked cars, making it more difficult for them to attempt to bully their way past.
They have – it’s in Rule 213 of the Highway Code (although they have unhelpfully labelled this “rules for road users requiring extra care, rather than rules about…”:
“Cyclists are also advised to ride at least a door’s width or 1 metre from parked cars for their own safety.”
Don’t segment people into ‘cyclists’, ‘pedestrians’ and ‘drivers’. How about: “When you are exiting a vehicle, you must look out for other road users. The recommended way to do this is the Dutch reach method . When cycling, leave 1 metre gap from parked vehicles in case someone opens a door into you.”
Wait – I have to do a Dutch Reach when getting off my bike now?
@mdavidford, I wasn’t aware that you could exit a bike.
I think the suggestion is that everyone should look before they leap 🙈, it’s not absolutely necessary to go dutch.
That’s pretty much nonsense, drivers and passengers already seem able to look out for other cars; I’ve never seen or heard of people opening their doors in front of cars and having them torn off, must happen very, very rarely. Pedestrians are not in danger from car doors opening. So you have one group, drivers and passengers, whose actions frequently put another group, cyclists, in danger, it makes perfect sense to mention the names of those groups and warn the group causing the danger to stop doing it.
@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 think it happens quite a lot, just not reported. Just one of those things.
How often do we really hear about the four and a half deaths on our roads that occur every single day.
Advertising and other campaigns always target a specific group. People don’t tend to engage as well with non-specific campaigns. If this was part of a campaign targeted at cyclists rather than drivers then I would expect it to highlight avoiding the door zone, just as I would it expect it to concentrate on Dutch Reach and proper observations if the campaign was targeting car drivers.
Actors on TV shows never look behind before flinging a car door open, an opportunity missed for education.
Similarly stop the convention of drivers looking a passengers for long periods while “driving”.
To be fair, actors on TV shows hardly ever cycle or take part in any physical activity other than fighting or sexual intercourse.
It always seems odd when soap characters, who have never shown any interest in sport, suddenly start having a kick around when the world cup is on
it’s the law!
https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/1986/1078/regulation/105
Seems sensible advice to me. Sure, the driver would be in the wrong, and highlighting the danger might change some drivers behaviour, but risk is a combination of likelihood and outcome. The outcome bit of hitting an open door is still the same I.e. pretty catastrophic, so why put your faith in someone else. Just keep yourself out of harms way.
I hope I look as fit and healthy as Georges Ronsse when I’m seventy-six.
Sorry, what? TWENTY-six, you say…??!
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.
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.
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…
I think the suggestion is that everyone should look before they leap 🙈, it’s not absolutely necessary to go dutch.
I think the suggestion is that everyone should look before they leap 🙈, it’s not absolutely necessary to go dutch.
@aidanR You’ve never ridden a Kingcycle with body sock or a Lightning F-40 then?
https://www.lightningbikes.com/f40/index.html
If you’ll admit “cycle” as opposed to “bike” you can definitely be “in the bike” (velomobile).
@chris Like 99.9999% of people, no I have not!
Trying image tags
Well done!
There is hope!!!
Eek – the squirrels are even loose in the comments carousel. 😬
For their own safety, cyclists shan’t expect motorists to pay attention to them. Like it or not, we are the most vulnerable road users. Consequently, we better anticipate the worse case scenario. Suburban areas being particularly hazardous.
Kent Road Safety. What is most astonishing and concerning about this utter debacle is the sheer incompetence of Kent Road Safety. Yet again, an organisation tasked with protecting the vulnerable and preventing them being killed/injured by the powerful, gets it 100% wrong, expecting the victims to avoid the dangerous behaviour of those causing the danger.
How can they not know and publicise the fact that it is the car occupants who must take care, both in law and morally. I’d sack the lot of them, they clearly haven’t the faintest clue about road safety.
Hmm – I just got a ‘9 free articles remaining’ banner at the top of the page – is a paywall incoming?
That would be quite some chutzpah given the mess the updates have caused (anybody else getting transparent ads covering half of the text of articles, that’s what I’m getting on my Mac?), following the Discovery cycling coverage model, we’ve made everything a lot worse, now pay more for it.
Now had eight and seven free articles, but weirdly only seems to apply to the Cannondale Propel article, so either (a) there’s a weird issue with that page, (b) that page is being used for testing a forthcoming paywall, or (c) it’s an oddly specific paywall that only covers Cannondale-related items…
Cannondale Propel? Do Giant know about this blatant copyright infringement?
I’m getting that as well but the ticker of available articles isn’t dropping however many others I visit, so it looks like paywall preparation; most likely they are going back to their previous subscription concept, which seemed to fall by the wayside, that reviews would be paywalled whilst other content would only go behind a paywall when archived.
Doh – got the comment and the article mixed up in my head as I was typing. In fairness, I was more focused on the banner than anything else on the page.
In a spirit of inquiry I refreshed the page in question with the “number of free articles remaining” ticker dropping each time; once it hit zero I got a page inviting me to subscribe to road.cc, with a free membership offering 10 articles per month and all other memberships paid for. It hasn’t stopped me from accessing other articles but it does look very much like a trial run. Very unwise if so, in my opinion!
I’m not getting the remaining free articles message, but when I try to read the Giant Propel review, I get bounced to a page inviting me to register and subscribe. Despite being logged in with a paid subscriber user account.
To all at road.cc HQ – all the very best with your ongoing efforts to fix these issues, I fully understand why you may have had to update the platform (been there done that with old legacy code on unsupportable hosting stacks), and I guess you’re too far in to roll back now, but please fix the things that make used to make the site worth visiting.
@mark1a Seconded!
Although … if they’re trying to help wean me off posting or even browsing here it’s going according to plan.
I’ve never understand the backlash and outrage from cyclists when they are advised to take some responsibility for their own safety.
That’s like pedestrians being angry for being advised to look both ways before crossing the road. When it’s a green man or at a zebra crossing, drivers and cyclists must stop but in reality we all know this is not the case, so it is prudent to look both ways before crossing to keep yourself safe from drivers and cyclists, especially now with segregated cycle lanes and bus stop islands, rarely do cyclists stop at those mini zebra crossings not to mention normal zebra crossings and pelican crossings. Most cyclists seem to follow the rule of “I don’t want to slow or stop and as long as I don’t hit anyone, it’s fine for ME to do this…but if anyone hits me while I do this it’s 100% their fault”
(And before you accuse me of being a driver, I’m a cyclist who commutes everyday into central London on a bicycle and these are my observations from years of cycling London roads).
Keeping 1m from parked cars is simple advice and easy to do and will keep you safer on the roads, and to be honest it’s pretty much common sense to do this and if cyclists aren’t doing it, then it’s a question of “why don’t you do this?”
In the Netherlands that cyclists love to quote where drivers do the “Dutch Lean” on the flip side, Dutch cyclists also do the “1m rule” where they keep at least 1m from parked cars to reduce risk of being doored, but UK cyclists love to demand UK drivers and government to follow the Dutch rules and infrastructure, but will do nothing themselves to improve their cycling and safety and follow what Dutch cyclists do.
BINGO!
But but they’re a cyclist themselves – possibly even an “avid” one… and so knowledgeable about developments elsewhere eg. in NL!
the road safety partnership claimed they did a post to motorists saying: When exiting your vehicle, opening your car door with your opposite hand will increase visibility of cyclists and other road users who are passing your vehicle
#KentRoadSafety #HighwayCode
not really that forceful though.
They sent it 30 mins before the cycling one.