Two broken ribs and a wrist. Video shows the dangers of car ‘dooring’ for cyclists
Michael Gilroy had about a split second" to anticipate the pain before he and his partner crashed into a car door that opened suddenly in front of their bicycles on Locke Street in early April.
Cyclists call that dooring" - or if you like dark humour, winning the door prize."
It's kind of always been one of my greatest fears," said Gilroy, who was rolling north along a section of Locke Street without bike lanes, near The Burnt Tongue, when the driver of a parked car opened his door in front of them.
You have about a split second to think, oh, how bad is this going to be?' and then you're sprawled on the road," said Gilroy, who broke a wrist and two ribs in the crash. His partner also suffered a broken wrist and both ended up needing a hospital visit.
The driver was quite apologetic" but didn't share insurance information.
After consulting a lawyer, they tracked down camera footage of the crash that enabled them to make a police complaint and follow up with the driver's insurance company.
The couple gave their lawyer, David Shellnutt, permission to circulate that painful-looking video online in the hopes it would raise awareness" about the risk of dooring injuries.
Shellnutt, who specializes in cycling injuries, said dooring can be very dangerous, or even fatal" to bike riders - especially if a 4,000-pound motor vehicle is following close behind a cyclist who is suddenly flipped onto the roadway by a carelessly opened car door.
He argued the risks need to be highlighted for cyclists, drivers and governments that decide where to build bike lanes. (Some advocates push drivers to use the Dutch Reach" - opening your car door with your far hand - in order to make turning to look for two-wheeled traffic a habit before you exit the vehicle.)
It's hard to know exactly how often cyclists are doored" in Hamilton.
A driver can be charged under the Highway Traffic Act for opening a car door without first taking due precautions," with tickets of around $365.
Spokesperson Jackie Penman said Hamilton police now have a collision reporting category for these offences, but they are challenging to track" because the service is still using a paper-based system so some data may be missed."
She said the service is still investigating Gilroy's complaint based on the video footage.
Collision statistics collected by the city from both police and the self-reporting collision centre show between one and five dooring" incidents in any given year since 2018. There were five reported in 2022.
By comparison, in 2016 there were 209 reported dooring collisions in Toronto.
Chris Ritsma suspects dooring happens more often locally than is formally reported or reflected in charges.
If you're not badly injured, maybe you don't bother trying to report," said Ritsma, who chairs the city's cycling subcommittee.
That committee asked the city in 2021 to advocate to the province to make formal reporting and tracking of such incidents mandatory, arguing such statistics are important to inform policy decisions.
Shellnutt emphasized that kind of tracking matters. It's a lot easier to convince councillors to put in bike lanes when it's clear a lot of people are being injured in a particular street or area," he said.
The city is focused on building more complete streets," but still struggles to balance the needs of different users during street redesign. Locke Street was rebuilt in 2019 to offer new road safety features and pedestrian amenities - but not dedicated bike lanes on the section where Gilroy was injured.
Matthew Van Dongen is a transportation and environment reporter at The Spectator. mvandongen@thespec.com