The Illinois Department of Transportation (IDOT) should count bicycle dooring accidents as crashes. Dooring occurs when a parked car opens a door in front of a cyclist that is unable to avoid it, resulting in a collision. These incidents, which can cause injury and death to the bicyclist, are particularly important to consider in urban areas like Chicago, where almost all bicycle lanes are adjacent to parked cars whose doors open into bicycle rights-of-way.
The Active Transportation Alliance has been campaigning to include dooring in IDOT crash statistics. Even though dooring is illegal and ticketable, these dooring collisions are not counted as bicycle-vehicle accidents, and the Active Transportation Alliance believes that the accident statistics are under reported by at least 15% statewide.
As the Chicago DOT’s bike count study indicates, bicycling is popular and getting more popular. A statistical error, like not counting dooring crashes, can cause significant problems in prioritizing safety, education and enforcement about multimodal transportation.
By counting dooring as crashes, this prevalent safety threat on Illinois begins to become a real concept to the state, and education about the problem and proper enforcement can be officially promoted. With these essential components, bicycle friendly streets can continue to make Chicago a defining city for sustainable transportation.
To contact IDOT and request that they count dooring crashes, use one of the following methods:
Call: Divison of Traffic Safety (217) 782-4972
Write: Division of Traffic Safety, Illinois Department of Transportation, 2300 S. Dirksen Parkway, Springfield, IL 62764
Email: http://www.dot.state.il.us/Email/Email.asp?from=1
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