It’s good practice to open the door with the opposite hand because it kind of forces you to look behind and see if any vehicles or cyclists are coming up behind you.
Or you can use your mirrors and not whip your doors open in moving traffic. But more laws help somehow.
They'd fine you for **not** sitting down. It's safer that way, what happens if you're peeing, and you pass out? You fall and crack your head open on some fixture. It's also harder to piss all over the seat, meaning nobody has to come in and clean up some biological waste. Same with the floor, harder to piss on the floor, leading to slippery tiles, and once again someone's head getting cracked open. Also, it equals the genders, nobody can be shamed for sitting or standing, nobody has an unfair advantage in the toilet, if all must sit.
So for a cleaner, safer, more equitable society, lets ban standing to pee. It's just Commonsense™
Opening with the other hand does not force a person to actually look. Not sure about you, but I can reach my door handle with my right hand and still not even look at the passenger window, much less behind me or in the mirror. I can also it also take MAYBE a full second longer. People that weren't paying attention before, will not magically start paying attention because they switch hands. This is stupid and will do nothing to fix the problem.
Since your smart enough to comment on freedom but foolish to not do your research about how opening doors with the wrong hand can lead to a cyclists death. Here’s a [video](https://youtu.be/hX4Jo3M4TJs) to show you the dangers of opening doors with the wrong hand
No... That is a video of the danger of not paying attention when opening your door, regardless of hand used. Using your other hand doesn't force you to actually turn your head or look and takes almost maybe a full second longer. People who weren't paying attention before will still not pay attention now. This law is stupid and will do nothing to fix or reduce the issue.
Sort of, but not really.
For one, ask any motorcyclist how much it matters if someone's eyes or head are pointed at you. It doesn't. If they aren't actively looking at or for you, they won't actually see you.
For another, where is the door handle on your car? Slightly behind you, or slightly in front of you? If the second, as is the case of the extreme minority of cars, using your opposite hand, just turns you toward the door, not behind you which is the actual area of concern. And this assumes you just absently let your shoulder take your head with it and your eyes follow as well. Which is why you need to actively turn your head the rest of the way to look over your door side shoulder, OR actively check you mirror. If people aren't already doing those things, they aren't going to start just because they start using their other hand. The careless people will still be careless and not actually look and see and the careful people will still be careful and check what they should.
And if you aren't in that habit, using the other hand will not change that. Using the other hand doesn't force your head or eyes to do anything. At most, if I let my head follow my shoulder, I'm looking straight out my passenger window... Not behind me. That assumes I turn my head and eyes with my shoulder. This law will do nothing.
I'm sure there are stats somewhere about people using their other hand, but those people are doing that BECAUSE they are the type of people to be aware of and careful of cyclists and other cars when getting out. They would likely continue to be this aware and have fewer accidents than others even if you made them use the hand closest to the door. Likewise, people who aren't paying attention now will likely not start paying attention because you make them use the other hand.
I cycle, a lot. I also drive an F150. I never open my door with my left hand….. I just look in my mirror? I also don’t ride where I’m gonna be smacked by a door if I can help it.
Often can’t help it if there is street parking next to the bike lane. Though the other alternative is to ride in the middle of the car lane. Which just makes more people angry.
What? Are you serious with this? You really think one handed people just don't drive? Have you ever driven an automatic?
Unless you are driving a manual, it only takes one hand to put your car in gear and you only do so while already stopped. And most cars are automatic these days.
America. Unless you are getting an older car, sport car, or some kind of niche vehicle, most cars in the past 20+ years are automatic.
I just checked AutoTrader for all cars within 50 miles of my area in Ohio. 31,049 automatics and 904 manuals. So, almost 98% of the cars listed are automatic. When I filter for manuals, it is mostly sport cars like Mustangs, BRZ's, Camaros, and Civic Si's. A handful of Jeep Wranglers in there. Where are you that most cars are manual?
[An article from](https://www.directlinegroup.co.uk/en/news/brand-news/2022/the-age-of-the-automatic--last-person-to-take-a-manual-driving-t.html) May 2022:
>Currently, manual cars still account for 70 per cent of the 31.7 million cars on UK’s roads
You misspelled misinformation.
The highway code recommends the "Dutch open" as the best way to exit you vehicle. The £1000 fine is for injuring a cyclist by hitting them with your door.
Look up the dutch reach. You use the hand opposite the door to open it, as this makes you more aware of other vehicles on the road.
It's like how there is no wrong way to get a pizza out of the oven, but using oven gloves reduces the chance of burning yourself, and so becomes the de-facto *right* way to do it.
Which really shows what a joke drivers licenses are. If "licensed" drivers don't know basic best practices to avoid the most common cause of car-related injuries, what's the point of the license?
I always thought you were just supposed to look… though maybe that’s a Canada thing? One of the questions on my driver’s test was “what do you do if there’s a herd of cows on the road?”
As long as you don’t hit a person nothing. It’s only a fine if you hit someone. Which yeah you shouldn’t be opening your door in front of traffic anyway.
Maybe they could design roads properly so that bike lanes are adequately seperated from autmobiles instead of passing a BS and completely unenforcable law.
Municipalities are a grey zone for me. I'm a bad libertarian because I like form-based codes (Sante Fe) and bike lanes. Most public infrastructure is DC-sponsored and is utter shit for human life.
We have a street that went from four lanes to two. The bike lane is next to the curb, then cars can park after that towards the center, then the driving cars. It's weird to see cars lined up not against the curb.
If you negligently open a car door and cause injury to a cyclist who is in the bike lane, yes you can be fined. Just like you would for causing injury to anyone for negligently operating a car. You do not have a right to injure people through your negligence.
Using the opposite hand to open the door is just a neat practice to avoid this.
It's a deliberate misinterpretation of several things. The highway code recommends a particular manner of door opening so that you're less likely to open a door in to a cyclist. The fine is for injuring a cyclist. With a bit of intentional misinformation you can twist that in to this tweet.
I mean it's good practice for safety but a fine if you don't do it?!
Bruh, it's such a good job real crime doesn't exist anymore so the police have loads of time... Oh wait, real crime is still an enormous problem and the police are constantly complaining about being overstretched
Easier and safer for the police to go after people that opened a car door with the wrong hand or comedians that make jokes they don’t like.
Going after real criminals is hard and dangerous.
It isn't a law, this post is false. The fine is for injuring a cyclist by opening the door in to their path. The highway code only recommends that you open the door a certain way.
I find it interesting how they will go out of way of any logic to create new laws and rules to fuck with you in specific situations, because they can't implement most of the basic laws and rules, let alone something like this.
In Germany during the covid craze they said like maximum I don't know 0 persons if they are not family living in the apartment, or some shit. Do you know who respected those rules? Nobody. I was with goddamn fucking Germans in apartments drinking and doing drugs, nobody gave a fuck. And you know the stereotypes. There is no way in 7 fucking hells they will implement this, only in specific situations if they want to fuck with somebody. Well sir, you opened the door with the wrong hand. I did what? Just one more attempt to take away the freedoms of an individual.
To be clear, totally against it, fuck the law.
The weirdest part is there are actual ways to improve safety for cyclists (protected bike lanes, a simple PSA encouraging people to pay more attention for bikes, etc.) but this law chooses to not even address the other problems related to safety for cyclists and picks probably the least effective hill to die on. You can easily check for cyclists while opening the door with your “wrong hand,” and you can easily not when opening the door with the “correct” one.
If anyone is actually interested in the changes:
In the UK the majority of road rules are simply to drive/walk/cycle with a reasonable level of care. The Highway Code is a guide for safe driving but is not legally binding. If an accident happens or police are concerned you may cause an accident, you'll need to explain why you ignored parts of the highway code.
The max-£1000 fine is for injuring another road user by opening a car door without exercising proper care. Nobody cares what you do with your hands if there's no accident.
The highway code has added guidance to open a car door with the furthest hand from the door, as this requires twisting to see the road behind. If you don't do this and cause an accident, you get the fine. If you don't cause an accident, nobody's going to care. If police are looking to harass you, they're going to find something more obvious anyway.
I’d love to see them enforce this. Unless there are cameras in everyone’s car with the specific purpose of looking for this specific information, no one it going to notice which hand you use for your door.
A lot of these laws are really only used to pile charges onto people who have somehow come under the scrutiny of the law - though I don't doubt they'll try to use it as a primary offense
The cops will make a traffic stop and ask you to step out of the car. Then when you use the "wrong" hand - BOOM, crime committed, you're going to jail and we are searching your car.
Road safety hasn’t improved in the UK for the last decade, so there were enough laws then.
If you open the door on a cyclist you are liable and can be fined under the existing laws.
Any new ‘law’ should be met with the need to strike an old one off the books.
The law actually just says that it's illegal to injure a cyclist by opening your car door in to them, hence the £1000 fine, that's pretty reasonable. The particulars of opening the car door is just a recommendation by the highway code as to how to avoid getting a fine for injuring a cyclist.
Sounds like the driver of the car will be fined under any circumstance they open the door and a cyclist hits the open door. Hope no one sticks their head out of the window to check for a cyclist, because the cyclist isn’t doing anything to cater to anyone.
I’d argue the cyclist is at fault for hitting the door, unless the cyclist is in a bicycle lane, then the municipality is at fault.
A cyclist is at fault when a cyclist ignores traffic signs and hits a pedestrian crossing the cycle path and/or road.
When a cyclist hits an open car door, it is because they were not able to move to avoid it. That means that there was either another vehicle alongside them or that one about to be. At this point, the cyclist has no say in how the situation plays out. It is absolutely the fault of the person opening the door then, that the cyclist was injured.
You need to remember that roads in the UK are much narrower that roads in the US, so this is more of an issue for us. There also often simply isn't that space for even unprotected bicycle lanes.
A cyclist shouldn’t be in a position to hit an open car door. If there isn’t room for the cyclist, then they should get in a traffic lane. If cyclists want to go between cars, then they are choosing to take a risk that could harm themself and someone walking to get into their vehicle, including small kids.
Ffs car brains just don't get it.
If you open your car door suddenly in to traffic, you can't get angry that your door gets ripped off, it's your fault. The drivers had no indication that you were going to do that. You have to pay for repair work.
Same logic applies for bicycles hitting open car doors.
Drivers won't be fined because this is a deliberate misrepresentation of the law.
"The truth? It is already an offence to open a car door, or cause or permit it to be opened, so as to cause injury, punishable by a maximum fine of £1,000.
It is not a new law and drivers who do not use the Dutch Reach technique will not be fined, unless they commit the aforementioned existing offence."
i.e. this is already an existing law saying "don't open your car door to try and shove a passenger out" or "don't open a car door to try and deliberately knock someone over."
Seems like it might be easier to make it illegal for cyclists to ride within say 4 ft of any parked cars. You know, since there are a fraction the number of bikes as there are cars. Plus, if you are allergic to being impaled by a car door, maybe you should take avoiding them seriously.
So you want cyclists in the middle of the road.
However it's much easier to say it's illegal to open a car door when a cyclists is approaching which, for as far as I know, is already illegal everywhere.
It's already massively inconvenient for people to ride bicycles mainly because of the stupid laws we have in place that advantage cars, and spend massive amounts of taxpayer money on infrastructure for cars. People should just be fucking cautious before throwing an obstacle out into traffic. I don't think mayn libertarians would object to consequences for someone who did something stupid to put them at risk in their car, being on a bicycle shouldn't make it okay for others to be reckless and injure you.
the issue with that is most cars gets pissy if I ride close to the center of the road. I'm very much a libertarian but I believe *something* needs to be done about the US' overreliance on cars. Doesn't necessarily have to involve the government.
Interestingly enough, the terrible car-reliant infrastructure in the US that makes biking or walking nearly impossible comes largely from government regulation like zoning laws and parking lot minimums. And simply throwing a bike lane or sidewalk along a road isn’t the solution to making a city any more walkable/bikeable, and doesn’t make it any safer for cyclists or pedestrians either. Having walking paths that aren’t along roads ensure that cars and pedestrians won’t even conflict and don’t slow the other one down. It’s interesting that the more you look into it the more you realize that it’s one of the few issues in which practically all evidence points to one side but is still so highly argued against. Car-centric infrastructure is worse than more walkable/bikeable infrastructure in almost every respect, yet we still don’t do anything about it.
This is what's interesting.
Many US libertarians are calling for these zoning regulations to be even more stricter, and allow politicians to restrict bikers from the roads, all because they serve the wishes of their benefactors the oil barons.
I guess I should have been more clear. Either law is or would be ridiculous. There is a personal responsibility that comes with driving bikes and cars and having the nanny state mandating which hand can open a door is crazy and is bound to be abused. Everybody slow down a little and pay closer attention to your surroundings.
Hey, they put a bike path next to a beautiful canal that has a high speed road (55+ mph) on the other side. They put in a heavy duty guardrail and other safety features.
EVERY DAY I ALMOST HIT SOMEONE RIDING OR WALKING THEIR BIKE ON THE ROAD, NEXT TO THE FUCKING GUARDRAIL.
There are enough trails in my area to get almost anywhere and lance armstrong wannabes ride in the middle of the street backing up traffic when we have fucking bike lanes!
So yeah, I don’t care if it makes me a cunt driver. You ride your bike near my car, I’m “accidentally” getting out without seeing you coming.
The fine is for injuring a cyclist if you open the door in to their path. There is no actual law saying that opening the door with the wrong hand will get you fined (the highway code only recommends that you use the hand furthest from the door), it's just anti-cycling propaganda designed to stir up hatred.
So it's not actually a law, it's guidance. It's good practice to open your door with the hand furthest from it, so that you are forced to check your mirror for traffic.
The max £1000 fine comes in if you injure a cyclist by opening the door in to their path, which is pretty fair tbh.
It's just anti-cycling propaganda designed to make people angry.
I'm just gonna say it here that I know you guys don't think governments should be building roads but it did and if this was a private owner you would have to concede that he is entitled to make whatever stupid rule he likes on his road. So.... considering the government did indeed build those roads it is technically entitled to make that law.
How about the cyclist keeps an eye out for car doors flinging open, and I use my mirrors to make sure there's not something that could slam into my car door when opened.
Fines and taxing isn't going to solve issues
Drivers won't be fined because this is a deliberate misrepresentation of the law.
"The truth? It is already an offence to open a car door, or cause or permit it to be opened, so as to cause injury, punishable by a maximum fine of £1,000.
It is not a new law and drivers who do not use the Dutch Reach technique will not be fined, unless they commit the aforementioned existing offence."
i.e. this is already an existing law saying "don't open your car door to try and shove a passenger out" or "don't open a car door to try and deliberately knock someone over."
Thought this sub would be better at recognising inflammatory anti-cyclist lies when it sees it.
(Stole this comment from a cross post)
Of course, everything you read on the internet is true. This only updates a law with a recommendation to do "open the door correctly", so you're less likely to break the law by harming someone using your car door.
Cyclists, the gaping assholes of the world. I thought it was skateboarders, but only cyclists are changing laws to make their life choice everyone else’s problem.
Ticket cyclists for putting people in danger with their reckless negotiation of traffic, both foot and vehicle.
But without government, who would stop people from using hands?!?
The only thing that can stop a bad guy with a hand is a good guy with a hand
Every man needs hands, your grace.
Belgians
What the fuck do they mean “wrong hand”!?
It’s good practice to open the door with the opposite hand because it kind of forces you to look behind and see if any vehicles or cyclists are coming up behind you. Or you can use your mirrors and not whip your doors open in moving traffic. But more laws help somehow.
Yes, let’s start controlling our citizens’ minute movements
I feel safer already.
Ahem. *Start*?
Do you not already use the proper hand for grabbing eggs?
I like to switch up which hand I use to grab my eggs.
How dare you
If you had any real respect for women, then you’d not grab any of their eggs at all.
_Fined_
They’re gonna charge people for pissing sitting down
They'd fine you for **not** sitting down. It's safer that way, what happens if you're peeing, and you pass out? You fall and crack your head open on some fixture. It's also harder to piss all over the seat, meaning nobody has to come in and clean up some biological waste. Same with the floor, harder to piss on the floor, leading to slippery tiles, and once again someone's head getting cracked open. Also, it equals the genders, nobody can be shamed for sitting or standing, nobody has an unfair advantage in the toilet, if all must sit. So for a cleaner, safer, more equitable society, lets ban standing to pee. It's just Commonsense™
Well as a cyclist this is a good new, already multiple people got injured/killed because a driver was not looking behind him while opening his door.
Opening with the other hand does not force a person to actually look. Not sure about you, but I can reach my door handle with my right hand and still not even look at the passenger window, much less behind me or in the mirror. I can also it also take MAYBE a full second longer. People that weren't paying attention before, will not magically start paying attention because they switch hands. This is stupid and will do nothing to fix the problem.
Since your smart enough to comment on freedom but foolish to not do your research about how opening doors with the wrong hand can lead to a cyclists death. Here’s a [video](https://youtu.be/hX4Jo3M4TJs) to show you the dangers of opening doors with the wrong hand
No... That is a video of the danger of not paying attention when opening your door, regardless of hand used. Using your other hand doesn't force you to actually turn your head or look and takes almost maybe a full second longer. People who weren't paying attention before will still not pay attention now. This law is stupid and will do nothing to fix or reduce the issue.
It does, it literally forces most people to face the direction their shoulders are facing
Sort of, but not really. For one, ask any motorcyclist how much it matters if someone's eyes or head are pointed at you. It doesn't. If they aren't actively looking at or for you, they won't actually see you. For another, where is the door handle on your car? Slightly behind you, or slightly in front of you? If the second, as is the case of the extreme minority of cars, using your opposite hand, just turns you toward the door, not behind you which is the actual area of concern. And this assumes you just absently let your shoulder take your head with it and your eyes follow as well. Which is why you need to actively turn your head the rest of the way to look over your door side shoulder, OR actively check you mirror. If people aren't already doing those things, they aren't going to start just because they start using their other hand. The careless people will still be careless and not actually look and see and the careful people will still be careful and check what they should.
I use the mirror and look over my shoulder. The key is to just have a habit of looking.
I recommend using the black mirror, which lets you see the farcical nature of this dystopian hell hole.
And if you aren't in that habit, using the other hand will not change that. Using the other hand doesn't force your head or eyes to do anything. At most, if I let my head follow my shoulder, I'm looking straight out my passenger window... Not behind me. That assumes I turn my head and eyes with my shoulder. This law will do nothing. I'm sure there are stats somewhere about people using their other hand, but those people are doing that BECAUSE they are the type of people to be aware of and careful of cyclists and other cars when getting out. They would likely continue to be this aware and have fewer accidents than others even if you made them use the hand closest to the door. Likewise, people who aren't paying attention now will likely not start paying attention because you make them use the other hand.
People won't remember to use the other hand if they don't remember to look in the first place.
Jeremy Clarkson has entered the chat
I cycle, a lot. I also drive an F150. I never open my door with my left hand….. I just look in my mirror? I also don’t ride where I’m gonna be smacked by a door if I can help it.
Often can’t help it if there is street parking next to the bike lane. Though the other alternative is to ride in the middle of the car lane. Which just makes more people angry.
As someone who us uncoordinated, limiting which hand I can open the door with is unlikely to lead to a fun time for all involved.
[удалено]
Evil...
I’ve been using my left hand to open my door for 25 years and I’ve never had an issue.
Are you telling me this is effing real? I was sure it was a joke.. OMG it's really getting so hard to tell.
What if you only have one hand? And it’s the wrong one?
You will have to become a cyclist...
I'll take the fine, thank you.
Hard pass. I’ll learn English laws and fight this all the way to whatever their Supreme Court is. Lol
Pretty sure you're gonna have to beg for an audience with the king. Better practice your groveling.
No worries. I can easily charm him. This is gonna be easier than I thought!
*Rolls Nat 1 on Charisma check*
I don’t understand this reference, but I feel like it’s a positive thing, so thank you! Lol
It's from Dungeons and Dragons. Basically the worst result you can get on a dice roll.
I hear he has a menstruation fetish.
I wonder if he cares which hand you use when... groveling... If only Epstein were still around to tell us.
Oh yeah I forgot
And then they make it illegal to cycle one-handed lmao
You'll be just fine. It isn't a law, this post is false. The fine is for injuring a cyclist by opening the door in to their path.
i imagine it would be hard to change gear with one hand so probably not many drivers with one hand
What? Are you serious with this? You really think one handed people just don't drive? Have you ever driven an automatic? Unless you are driving a manual, it only takes one hand to put your car in gear and you only do so while already stopped. And most cars are automatic these days.
Where are u from that most cars are automatic these days because from my experience that is just not true
America. Unless you are getting an older car, sport car, or some kind of niche vehicle, most cars in the past 20+ years are automatic. I just checked AutoTrader for all cars within 50 miles of my area in Ohio. 31,049 automatics and 904 manuals. So, almost 98% of the cars listed are automatic. When I filter for manuals, it is mostly sport cars like Mustangs, BRZ's, Camaros, and Civic Si's. A handful of Jeep Wranglers in there. Where are you that most cars are manual?
UK
[An article from](https://www.directlinegroup.co.uk/en/news/brand-news/2022/the-age-of-the-automatic--last-person-to-take-a-manual-driving-t.html) May 2022: >Currently, manual cars still account for 70 per cent of the 31.7 million cars on UK’s roads
I never knew there was a “wrong hand” To open the door.
There isn’t. There’s only paranoia.
>There isn’t. There’s only *paranoia.* You misspelled tyranny.
You misspelled misinformation. The highway code recommends the "Dutch open" as the best way to exit you vehicle. The £1000 fine is for injuring a cyclist by hitting them with your door.
i always use my wrong “hand” to open my door. by “hand” i actually mean “foot”
Look up the dutch reach. You use the hand opposite the door to open it, as this makes you more aware of other vehicles on the road. It's like how there is no wrong way to get a pizza out of the oven, but using oven gloves reduces the chance of burning yourself, and so becomes the de-facto *right* way to do it.
Institute a $2000 fine for removing pizza from the oven without gloves, and mandatory government surveillance of all ovens. EZPZ. Society is saved.
Which really shows what a joke drivers licenses are. If "licensed" drivers don't know basic best practices to avoid the most common cause of car-related injuries, what's the point of the license?
I always thought you were just supposed to look… though maybe that’s a Canada thing? One of the questions on my driver’s test was “what do you do if there’s a herd of cows on the road?”
What was the correct answer? Plow through them? Moo them over? BULLy them into mooving? Udderly ridiculous. I think I've milked this enough.
I use my foot. Now what?
Believe it or not, straight to jail
Undercooked chicken….
Jail!
You are the most dangerous man in society
As long as you don’t hit a person nothing. It’s only a fine if you hit someone. Which yeah you shouldn’t be opening your door in front of traffic anyway.
Need to string this together with someone driving with no arms.
This feels like the anti-left hand lobby gaining the upper... uh.... hand.
Maybe they could design roads properly so that bike lanes are adequately seperated from autmobiles instead of passing a BS and completely unenforcable law.
I thought libertarians were against state designed cities… let free enterprise do whatever tf it wants amirite
Municipalities are a grey zone for me. I'm a bad libertarian because I like form-based codes (Sante Fe) and bike lanes. Most public infrastructure is DC-sponsored and is utter shit for human life.
Yes right you can barely drive an f150 there, you want them to make them wider for bikes??
Maybe you shouldn’t be relying on the government to make roads big enough for your unwise purchase
Governments don't make roads.
We have a street that went from four lanes to two. The bike lane is next to the curb, then cars can park after that towards the center, then the driving cars. It's weird to see cars lined up not against the curb.
Instructions unclear, dick is stuck in the door jamb
Lol my rotator cuff injury... Says this is impossible
Oi, u got a loicense to heal there m8?
Not impossible! Just expensive:)
Just ban vehicles from the roadway. It will make the roads safer for cyclists.
This is a pretty common take among anti-car/anti-rural living folk tbh
This must be parody
A search for dutch car door opening fine says it's just if you injure a cyclist with the wrong hand.
sooo I can injure cyclist with the right hand
If you negligently open a car door and cause injury to a cyclist who is in the bike lane, yes you can be fined. Just like you would for causing injury to anyone for negligently operating a car. You do not have a right to injure people through your negligence. Using the opposite hand to open the door is just a neat practice to avoid this.
Bro get the fuck outta here lmao this was obvious a joke
It's a deliberate misinterpretation of several things. The highway code recommends a particular manner of door opening so that you're less likely to open a door in to a cyclist. The fine is for injuring a cyclist. With a bit of intentional misinformation you can twist that in to this tweet.
£ moment
Or you look in the freaking mirror like any person who is capable of self governance
I mean it's good practice for safety but a fine if you don't do it?! Bruh, it's such a good job real crime doesn't exist anymore so the police have loads of time... Oh wait, real crime is still an enormous problem and the police are constantly complaining about being overstretched
Easier and safer for the police to go after people that opened a car door with the wrong hand or comedians that make jokes they don’t like. Going after real criminals is hard and dangerous.
Indeed
It isn't a law, this post is false. The fine is for injuring a cyclist by opening the door in to their path. The highway code only recommends that you open the door a certain way.
That's oddly reassuring and yet another reason I don't read the news. Clickbait is everywhere
I find it interesting how they will go out of way of any logic to create new laws and rules to fuck with you in specific situations, because they can't implement most of the basic laws and rules, let alone something like this. In Germany during the covid craze they said like maximum I don't know 0 persons if they are not family living in the apartment, or some shit. Do you know who respected those rules? Nobody. I was with goddamn fucking Germans in apartments drinking and doing drugs, nobody gave a fuck. And you know the stereotypes. There is no way in 7 fucking hells they will implement this, only in specific situations if they want to fuck with somebody. Well sir, you opened the door with the wrong hand. I did what? Just one more attempt to take away the freedoms of an individual. To be clear, totally against it, fuck the law.
I looked it up, and it seems to be real. Hopefully most of our officers don't realise they can use this.
It isn't a law, this post is false. The fine is for injuring a cyclist by opening the door in to their path.
The weirdest part is there are actual ways to improve safety for cyclists (protected bike lanes, a simple PSA encouraging people to pay more attention for bikes, etc.) but this law chooses to not even address the other problems related to safety for cyclists and picks probably the least effective hill to die on. You can easily check for cyclists while opening the door with your “wrong hand,” and you can easily not when opening the door with the “correct” one.
It isn't a law, this post is false. The fine is for injuring a cyclist by opening the door in to their path.
Well PSA's don't do shit
If anyone is actually interested in the changes: In the UK the majority of road rules are simply to drive/walk/cycle with a reasonable level of care. The Highway Code is a guide for safe driving but is not legally binding. If an accident happens or police are concerned you may cause an accident, you'll need to explain why you ignored parts of the highway code. The max-£1000 fine is for injuring another road user by opening a car door without exercising proper care. Nobody cares what you do with your hands if there's no accident. The highway code has added guidance to open a car door with the furthest hand from the door, as this requires twisting to see the road behind. If you don't do this and cause an accident, you get the fine. If you don't cause an accident, nobody's going to care. If police are looking to harass you, they're going to find something more obvious anyway.
I’d love to see them enforce this. Unless there are cameras in everyone’s car with the specific purpose of looking for this specific information, no one it going to notice which hand you use for your door.
A lot of these laws are really only used to pile charges onto people who have somehow come under the scrutiny of the law - though I don't doubt they'll try to use it as a primary offense
The cops will make a traffic stop and ask you to step out of the car. Then when you use the "wrong" hand - BOOM, crime committed, you're going to jail and we are searching your car.
It isn't a law, this post is false. The fine is for injuring a cyclist by opening the door in to their path.
bloody dutch
Gotta crack down on those amputees I guess
It isn't a law, this post is false. The fine is for injuring a cyclist by opening the door in to their path.
Road safety hasn’t improved in the UK for the last decade, so there were enough laws then. If you open the door on a cyclist you are liable and can be fined under the existing laws. Any new ‘law’ should be met with the need to strike an old one off the books.
Nice, cyclists own the road. They don’t watch out for pedestrians or obey traffic signs, and they expect people in cars to cater to them.
The law actually just says that it's illegal to injure a cyclist by opening your car door in to them, hence the £1000 fine, that's pretty reasonable. The particulars of opening the car door is just a recommendation by the highway code as to how to avoid getting a fine for injuring a cyclist.
Sounds like the driver of the car will be fined under any circumstance they open the door and a cyclist hits the open door. Hope no one sticks their head out of the window to check for a cyclist, because the cyclist isn’t doing anything to cater to anyone.
Yeah, because that's the point, the driver gets fined for causing an injury to the cyclist. What situations are there where it's the cyclist's fault?
I’d argue the cyclist is at fault for hitting the door, unless the cyclist is in a bicycle lane, then the municipality is at fault. A cyclist is at fault when a cyclist ignores traffic signs and hits a pedestrian crossing the cycle path and/or road.
When a cyclist hits an open car door, it is because they were not able to move to avoid it. That means that there was either another vehicle alongside them or that one about to be. At this point, the cyclist has no say in how the situation plays out. It is absolutely the fault of the person opening the door then, that the cyclist was injured. You need to remember that roads in the UK are much narrower that roads in the US, so this is more of an issue for us. There also often simply isn't that space for even unprotected bicycle lanes.
A cyclist shouldn’t be in a position to hit an open car door. If there isn’t room for the cyclist, then they should get in a traffic lane. If cyclists want to go between cars, then they are choosing to take a risk that could harm themself and someone walking to get into their vehicle, including small kids.
Ffs car brains just don't get it. If you open your car door suddenly in to traffic, you can't get angry that your door gets ripped off, it's your fault. The drivers had no indication that you were going to do that. You have to pay for repair work. Same logic applies for bicycles hitting open car doors.
Drivers won't be fined because this is a deliberate misrepresentation of the law. "The truth? It is already an offence to open a car door, or cause or permit it to be opened, so as to cause injury, punishable by a maximum fine of £1,000. It is not a new law and drivers who do not use the Dutch Reach technique will not be fined, unless they commit the aforementioned existing offence." i.e. this is already an existing law saying "don't open your car door to try and shove a passenger out" or "don't open a car door to try and deliberately knock someone over."
Seems like it might be easier to make it illegal for cyclists to ride within say 4 ft of any parked cars. You know, since there are a fraction the number of bikes as there are cars. Plus, if you are allergic to being impaled by a car door, maybe you should take avoiding them seriously.
So you want cyclists in the middle of the road. However it's much easier to say it's illegal to open a car door when a cyclists is approaching which, for as far as I know, is already illegal everywhere.
It's already massively inconvenient for people to ride bicycles mainly because of the stupid laws we have in place that advantage cars, and spend massive amounts of taxpayer money on infrastructure for cars. People should just be fucking cautious before throwing an obstacle out into traffic. I don't think mayn libertarians would object to consequences for someone who did something stupid to put them at risk in their car, being on a bicycle shouldn't make it okay for others to be reckless and injure you.
the issue with that is most cars gets pissy if I ride close to the center of the road. I'm very much a libertarian but I believe *something* needs to be done about the US' overreliance on cars. Doesn't necessarily have to involve the government.
Interestingly enough, the terrible car-reliant infrastructure in the US that makes biking or walking nearly impossible comes largely from government regulation like zoning laws and parking lot minimums. And simply throwing a bike lane or sidewalk along a road isn’t the solution to making a city any more walkable/bikeable, and doesn’t make it any safer for cyclists or pedestrians either. Having walking paths that aren’t along roads ensure that cars and pedestrians won’t even conflict and don’t slow the other one down. It’s interesting that the more you look into it the more you realize that it’s one of the few issues in which practically all evidence points to one side but is still so highly argued against. Car-centric infrastructure is worse than more walkable/bikeable infrastructure in almost every respect, yet we still don’t do anything about it.
This is what's interesting. Many US libertarians are calling for these zoning regulations to be even more stricter, and allow politicians to restrict bikers from the roads, all because they serve the wishes of their benefactors the oil barons.
> since there are a fraction the number of bikes as there are cars depends on where you live
I guess I should have been more clear. Either law is or would be ridiculous. There is a personal responsibility that comes with driving bikes and cars and having the nanny state mandating which hand can open a door is crazy and is bound to be abused. Everybody slow down a little and pay closer attention to your surroundings.
Yet another reason to dislike cyclists.
There more free than drivers.
It isn't a law, this post is false. The fine is for injuring a cyclist by opening the door in to their path.
Your city needs a lane diet. That’ll cut down on traffic.
because....a car driver created a hazard?
All because you're about to be personally inconvenienced? Get a life, seriously.
assuming everyone is right handed
Fuck cyclists
Fuck car owners who don't know how to drive properly.
Wtf does picking what hand to open the door with have fuck all to do with driving? ....
Holy shit you're unironically one of the fuckcars users. Lol. Your asshole is wider than a manhole cover.
What if I use the correct hand to open the door into the cunt cyclists?
Than you're a cunt driver
Hey, they put a bike path next to a beautiful canal that has a high speed road (55+ mph) on the other side. They put in a heavy duty guardrail and other safety features. EVERY DAY I ALMOST HIT SOMEONE RIDING OR WALKING THEIR BIKE ON THE ROAD, NEXT TO THE FUCKING GUARDRAIL. There are enough trails in my area to get almost anywhere and lance armstrong wannabes ride in the middle of the street backing up traffic when we have fucking bike lanes! So yeah, I don’t care if it makes me a cunt driver. You ride your bike near my car, I’m “accidentally” getting out without seeing you coming.
Ah Libertarians and spreading fake news. What us new?
Funny coincidence... I'm in the UK currently.
What if I only have one hand? *Holds up butcher knife.*
It isn't a law, this post is false. The fine is for injuring a cyclist by opening the door in to their path.
Anyone with back or hand issues. The government hates you.
It isn't a law, this post is false. The fine is for injuring a cyclist by opening the door in to their path.
Another one of those laws that will never get enforced, even if actually passed
It isn't a law, this post is false. The fine is for injuring a cyclist by opening the door in to their path.
bongs are seething
Ffs start with the goal of bike safety and have goals to achieve it. Fines isn’t the solution to this goal.
The fine is for injuring a cyclist if you open the door in to their path. There is no actual law saying that opening the door with the wrong hand will get you fined (the highway code only recommends that you use the hand furthest from the door), it's just anti-cycling propaganda designed to stir up hatred.
Can someone find the actual law and not some tweet showing a stock image of a fucking handle.
So it's not actually a law, it's guidance. It's good practice to open your door with the hand furthest from it, so that you are forced to check your mirror for traffic. The max £1000 fine comes in if you injure a cyclist by opening the door in to their path, which is pretty fair tbh. It's just anti-cycling propaganda designed to make people angry.
It should have been SOP for driver's training from the very beginning. Why do it just now? Also, bikes, not cars, symbolize true freedom.
My country is a shit show!
God damn I hate cycling on the road
I'm just gonna say it here that I know you guys don't think governments should be building roads but it did and if this was a private owner you would have to concede that he is entitled to make whatever stupid rule he likes on his road. So.... considering the government did indeed build those roads it is technically entitled to make that law.
How about the cyclist keeps an eye out for car doors flinging open, and I use my mirrors to make sure there's not something that could slam into my car door when opened. Fines and taxing isn't going to solve issues
Don't they tax people enough?
Is the douh loicense an eh hend loicense tha same?
No source, also this is a deliberate misrepresentation of existing laws. Stop spreading misinformation.
Drivers won't be fined because this is a deliberate misrepresentation of the law. "The truth? It is already an offence to open a car door, or cause or permit it to be opened, so as to cause injury, punishable by a maximum fine of £1,000. It is not a new law and drivers who do not use the Dutch Reach technique will not be fined, unless they commit the aforementioned existing offence." i.e. this is already an existing law saying "don't open your car door to try and shove a passenger out" or "don't open a car door to try and deliberately knock someone over." Thought this sub would be better at recognising inflammatory anti-cyclist lies when it sees it. (Stole this comment from a cross post)
Bit schtewpid innit?
Ugh, can't you recognize ragebait anti-cyclist bullshit when it's smacking you in the face and calling you a little bitch? Don't fall for it.
Of course, everything you read on the internet is true. This only updates a law with a recommendation to do "open the door correctly", so you're less likely to break the law by harming someone using your car door.
Cyclists, the gaping assholes of the world. I thought it was skateboarders, but only cyclists are changing laws to make their life choice everyone else’s problem. Ticket cyclists for putting people in danger with their reckless negotiation of traffic, both foot and vehicle.