Road safety doesn’t have to be complicated, yet many drivers fail to do enough to keep themselves and others safe.
Here are two things that could help keep people safer:
The Dutch Reach
Drivers and their passengers needlessly injure many cyclists by opening their doors into their paths.
The Dutch Reach is not hard, but it might take a bit of getting used to before it becomes a habit. All you do is open the door with the hand furthest away from the door, i.e. your inside hand. Try it and you’ll see that you have to reach across, which means that it’s much easier to see if it’s safe to open the door, or if you need to wait because there’s a cyclist or other vehicle about to pass by your side.
The 3-Second Rule
The National Safety Council came up with the 3-Second Rule to help drivers keep a safe following distance from the vehicle in front.
All a driver has to do is pick a point on the road ahead, and watch for when the car in front of them passes it. Then they need to ensure they don’t reach that point for at least three seconds. If they get there in say two seconds, they need to slow down a little, pick another point and repeat the process.
If someone injures you because they didn’t check before opening a door or were too close behind you’ve got a good case for claiming they were negligent and should compensate you for your injuries