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Permalink Reply by KatieP on March 17, 2013 at 8:02am

IGo included info on their e-newsletter this week!

Permalink Reply by Thunder Snow on May 8, 2013 at 5:22am

http://www.thechainlink.org/forum/topics/mayor-wants-to-increase-fi...

Mayor Emanuel plans to double fines for motorists who door, to $1000.  I think we're getting awareness out.

Permalink Reply by KatieP on May 10, 2013 at 2:14am

Solid find! This is really encouraging!!

Thunder Snow said:

http://www.thechainlink.org/forum/topics/mayor-wants-to-increase-fi...

Mayor Emanuel plans to double fines for motorists who door, to $1000.  I think we're getting awareness out.

Permalink Reply by Thunder Snow on June 14, 2013 at 2:27am

Look Chicago! discussed, along with Brendan, in yesterday's New York Times:

Brendan Kevenides, a personal injury lawyer in Chicago who exclusively handles bicycle-related accidents, said that a large majority of his cases involve “dooring,” the all-too-common event in which a parked driver flings opens a door, creating a sudden obstacle for an oncoming cyclist. Incidents like these, along with drivers’ failure to give bikers the right of way, account for nearly half of all bicycle-vehicle accidents.

“The injuries can be significant,” said Mr. Kevenides, who works with a group called LOOK! Chicago that coalesced after a bicyclist swerved to avoid an opening door and was fatally struck by a truck last fall.

In the Netherlands, where biking has long been part of the urban fabric, people are taught in driver education courses to reach across their bodies and open the driver’s door with the right hand, which forces the driver to look over the left shoulder to see if any bicyclists are coming.

“It is kind of an automatism; it’s in your system,” said Otto van Boggelen, program manager for Fietsberaad, a Dutch center of expertise on bicycling policy. “You have to be conscientious that there might be cyclists everywhere — and there are cyclists everywhere.”

Efforts to prevent injuries to cyclists are gaining traction in places like Chicago, where stickers that read, “LOOK! Before Opening Your Door,” will soon be placed on passenger windows in all 7,000 taxis, according to the program’s coordinator, Charlie Short, bike safety and education manager for the Chicago Department of Transportation. (Cabs in Boston were outfitted with similar stickers last month.) The city also includes bike safety in its training for all new cabdrivers, he says.

Last week, the Chicago City Council passed an ordinance doubling the fines for people who open doors in cyclists’ path: now $300 when the move interferes with a bicycle without incident, and $1,000 when it causes an accident.

Bicyclists, meanwhile, are advised to heed the “door zone,” biking roughly four feet to the left of parked cars. (For this reason, many bike safety advocates favor back-in angle parking.)

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/06/13/bike-sharing-can-mean-safe...