Continuing its incremental thaw towards a policy of safer streets, the New York Post has discovered the scourge of dooring. The paper finds that the number of tickets issued for the offense statewide have been slowly climbing, from 199 in 2011, to 209 in 2012, and 231 in 2013—minuscule increases considering that overall cycling volumes in the city increased by 58% from 2008 to 2012.
Cyclist Tskaka Cooke was killed in July of 2012 when a door opened in his path on Union Turnpike in Queens. Jasmine Herron was killed when she swerved her bike away from an open car door and was hit by a bus.
Yet dooring is merely a $150 violation, not a crime, under New York State VTL Section 1214 [PDF]. And like Hayley & Diego's law, which imposes jail time and a fine against drivers who fail to exercise due care, police are reluctant to cite drivers and passengers in dooring incidents unless they witness it themselves. Attempts to amend the law have fallen short in Albany.
“The population of cyclists in the city is growing, but the awareness of this dangerous act of opening a door into traffic is not,” said Daniel Flanzig, an attorney.
Flanzig said half his bike-crash cases involve dooring, with more than 35 clients injured in the past two years, many of whom win settlements. Under state and city traffic laws, it’s the duty of a person opening a car door to look first. Taxi passengers must exit curbside.
In 2012 the DOT created a PSA to alert drivers and passengers to the dangers of opening a door without looking for bike and pedestrian traffic.
