Illinois Department of Transportation didn’t know ‘dooring’ collisions were an issue

This blog post is my rant for anyone who flings their car door open on the street side without looking. The Chicago Tribune wrote an excellent article, “Illinois to start tracking bicycle ‘dooring’ collisions. This part of the article drives me crazy:

—-

IDOT officials expressed concerns that such a requirement would burden police with additional paperwork and that there were few complaints from the public about doorings.

“We were never against collecting the data. There was never really any large effort to make us aware that doorings could be an issue,” IDOT spokesman Guy Tridgell said.

—-

How in the world can a TRANSPORATION expert not know that dooring is an issue. Note he didn’t even say important issue. Just a plain issue. It’s almost like dooring doesn’t exist for IDOT. Thankfully IDOT is now aware that is an issue, “IDOT will mount a public outreach effort to communicate with drivers about the need to look around before popping open a door, especially in areas with high concentrations of bicyclists, the governor’s office said.”

It always amazes me how drivers will just fling their door open on the side of traffic without even looking if there is any cars or bikes coming. Aren’t people taught as kids to exit the car on the sidewalk side? And if you MUST exit on the street side that you are very careful. You don’t leave your door open on the street. And you certainly don’t just stand in the street by your car with the door open.

I hope IDOT’s campaign will teach all the drivers out there to not casually fling their doors open.