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Dutch ReachMotorists urged to use Dutch Reach technique after cyclist killed in collision
A 65-year-old cyclist was last month killed in a collision that saw him ride into an open car door, prompting his family to urge motorists to adopt the Dutch Reach technique when opening vehicle doors.
Recommended in the Highway Code, the technique invented in the Netherlands involves motorists opening vehicle doors using their hand furthest from the door, encouraging a body turn and addressing a blind spot to avoid opening the door into oncoming traffic, especially vulnerable cyclists.
> How the 'Dutch Reach' can prevent cyclists being doored
Martin Walczak died in hospital four days after a crash in Rolvenden in Kent on 24 March 2024, the county's police force confirming that he had hit the open door of a stationary car and the driver who opened it has not faced action for their involvement in the incident thus far. However, it has been communicated to road.cc that the investigation is ongoing and Kent Police have appealed to the public for any evidence related to the case.
"We have to safeguard one another, that's what we should be reflecting on, how can we best look after one another on the road," Martin's son Jonathan told the BBC. "The Dutch Reach makes you prioritise your opposing hand, so the natural action is to turn one's shoulders. Your periphery vision then opens up to the blind spot.
"We half expect him to pop his head round the corner and tell us he's been out on holiday. The most important thing is that we value the 65 years that he did get to spend on this earth, and he valued every single one of those years."
The appeal for wider use of the Dutch Reach comes as similar calls from the AA have been published by GB News, the organisation noting that 373 cyclists and motorcyclists were injured by car occupants opening their doors without looking in 2022. The AA also noted how its research found that 89 per cent of drivers agreed that it is "sometimes hard to see cyclists", the Dutch Reach technique hoped to improve visibility in one particular blind spot.
Without using the term "the Dutch Reach", the technique was introduced to the Highway Code during the wave of changes made to better protect vulnerable road users in January 2022. As per Rule 239, "Where you are able to do so, you should open the door using your hand on the opposite side to the door you are opening; for example, use your left hand to open a door on your right-hand side.
"This will make you turn your head to look over your shoulder. You are then more likely to avoid causing injury to cyclists or motorcyclists passing you on the road, or to people on the pavement."
Many newspapers and websites misrepresented the changes in the days before they were introduced, the Evening Standard publishing a story titled 'New Highway Code rule will fine drivers £1,000 for opening door with wrong hand', while the Express ran 'POLL: Do you support new fine for opening car with wrong hand as cyclists given priority?'
In reality, it was already an offence to open a car door, or cause or permit it to be opened, so as to cause injury, punishable by a maximum fine of £1,000.
In 2019, Cycling UK and Uber teamed up to teach drivers and passengers the Dutch Reach technique, the cycling charity having campaigned for it to be introduced to the driving test following the death of cyclist Sam Boulton in Leicester. A taxi driver was fined £300 plus costs following his conviction for the incident, the taxi's passenger who opened the door, Mandy Chapple, also fined £80 after admitting the offence of opening a car door, or causing or permitting it to be opened, so as to cause injury.
In the United States too, the Massachusetts Department of Transportation (MassDOT), in 2017 added the Dutch Reach to its driver's manual.
Dan is the road.cc news editor and joined in 2020 having previously written about nearly every other sport under the sun for the Express, and the weird and wonderful world of non-league football for The Non-League Paper. Dan has been at road.cc for four years and mainly writes news and tech articles as well as the occasional feature. He has hopefully kept you entertained on the live blog too.
Never fast enough to take things on the bike too seriously, when he's not working you'll find him exploring the south of England by two wheels at a leisurely weekend pace, or enjoying his favourite Scottish roads when visiting family. Sometimes he'll even load up the bags and ride up the whole way, he's a bit strange like that.
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29 comments
A couple of observations.
Rule 67 : You should ..... take care when passing parked vehicles, leaving enough room (a door’s width or 1 metre) to avoid being hit if a car door is opened, and watch out for pedestrians stepping into your path
If the cylist had been running a camera there would no discussion about when the door was opened.
Leaving a metre often takes courage due to other road users and can often result in frustrated drivers and/or punishment passes. No longer worries me but I can fully understand people who prefer not to.
Whilst leaving enough space makes a lot of sense (I usually do so when I see that a parked car is occupied), the onus should be on drivers/passengers to ensure that it is safe to swing open the door. SImilarly, the onus should be on the driver to prove that they opened their door in a safe manner rather than cyclists having to buy cameras just on the off-chance that they might be doored. (Car dashcams are often cheaper than bike cams as they don't need to be waterproof or have internal batteries)
It is possible to get waterproof action cameras e.g. WOLFANG relatively cheaply. Also, I find the Fly6 rear facing camera very good, although I appreciate a rear facing camera would not have helped under these circumstances, it is useful for submitting close pass and tailgating evidence.
Completely agree but under our legal system anyone (including a driver) is innocent until proven guilty. This, combined with the availablity of amoral lawyers, the lack of sanctions for lying through your teeth and underfunded police forces, means that the driver, more often than not, gets away with it. Some countries have presumed liability which would make it easier for the family to obtain compensation though not a conviction if I've understood it correctly.
I started with a cheap apeman camera bought off an auction site and stll available for under £20. Battery life is 60 to 100 minutes depending on temperature. I still use 2 of them on my shopping bike as I'm not worried about them being nicked. For longer rides I have graduated to Drift Ghost XLs, 8 hours battery life but a lot more expensive.
Then of course there is sentencing. Today we have had a bike thief jailed for 4 weeks but previously drivers who have killed a cyclist have received suspended sentences.
In this country at the moment I feel that I have to take steps to protect myself as much as possible. May be things will start to improve after the next election but I suspect the current party will get back in before anything substantial changes.
I don't understand why the driver is not being penalised.
I found this family statement
"My understanding is that my dad decided to take evasive action to avoid a collision with the driver about to exit [the car]. I believe he then collided with the edge of the car door, which caused a facial injury."
So NFA is very hard to understand especially as it is not Scotland or lancs.
My guess is due to lack of evidence, but the police don't seem to be making any effort to gather evidence (e.g. witness statements) which I would guess is because they're institutionally anti-cyclist.
Could it be that the driver claimed that the door was already open and not opened into the path of the cyclist, and that because there was no video evidence it could not be proven that the driver was making a false statement?
If the police are taking this approach then we can be sure that there will very few prosecutions for dooring.
Quite possibly, though it wouldn't surprise me if the police didn't even care about when the door was opened as they don't consider that law abiding, hard working motorists can do anything wrong. I don't know the area, so don't know if there would likely have been witnesses to the incident.
Alternatively case law says it isn't murder/dangerous driving, so only offence is C&U for opening door so as to endanger another road user.
At which point the police argue it isn't worth resources to persue when the insurance claim will be a few 1000x maximum criminal penalty (and increase in renewal a dozen times the maximum fine every year for the next decade)
Maybe the constable received a particular handshake?
I ride at least 1,5 m out from any car that's stopped on the side. I just have to picture running into a door to have shivers run down my spine.
I always avoid door zone. Probably pisses lots of drivists off because it means they have no chance to overtake me considering the majority of car clogged streets aren't wide enough. Fine by me.
373 cyclists and motorcyclists were injured by car occupants opening their doors without looking in 2022
Clearly 373 people being injured and potentially killed by callously indifferent drivers isn't worth the police's time. Such a rare event that it just isn't worth wasting anyone's time on, just a crazy, one off accident that could happen to anyone who doesn't bother looking, and certainly not worth prosecuting someone who kills a cyclist because they didn't look.
And it's only a cyclist.
In reality, it was already an offence to open a car door, or cause or permit it to be opened, so as to cause injury, punishable by a maximum fine of £1,000.
OMG, who knew? Certainly not most drivers: and definitely not the police.
I even had someone exit a black cab right in front of me when I had my old Ducati. Luckily I was able to stop but I remember the shocked look on the woman's face when she realised she'd nearly been knocked over. It was an incredibly loud bike and I still cannot understand why she didn't hear me. She wasn't hearing impaired. My neighbours probably breathed a sigh of relief when I sold the Ducati and my current Suzuki is rather less objectionable.
Don't forget the cabbie has control of the doors just by using the brake pedal.
29 January 2022. Highway code "recommends" the Dutch Reach. Fail by The Highway Code and missed opportunity.
Not sure this is a fail. While it's good avice, it is still possible to exit a car safely without using the Dutch Reach, and making it a 'MUST' is arguably useless because evidencing whether or not someone used it would be very difficult. Also, not sure if they introduced any new MUSTs with that revision, as that requires change to the law not just the code.
And my less exerienced friends get shocked when I shout, "move out (rather loudly)" as they attempt to pass parked cars in the killing zone!
If avoiding killing cyclists isn't enough, my colleague opened his car door into the path of a close passing car, which required expensive repairs to his car as well as the other one, and the insurers deemed it to be his fault. He seemed quite annoyed by that decision, but I reckon he won't make that mistake again.
This is how they should be teaching the Dutch reach, self interest is far better than caring about "othered" cyclists.
Due to how common it is for motorists to "door" cyclists, it seems bizarre that the police aren't pursuing this further. I can understand that they may not have much evidence, but they could at least ask for anyone else that might have captured the incident on video. It just seems very unlikely for a motorist to open a door with plenty of time for a cyclist to see and yet the cyclist goes full speed into it anyway.
This is the equivalent of a jogger running onto an innocently held knife by another pedestrian and the police not considering it to be a stabbing.
I agree it is more likely that this was a classic dooring, peter (despite what the police seem to have decided): I was just pointing out it could have happened differently.
It seems very unlikely that a cyclist would cycle straight into the back of a stationary and legally parked road maintenance lorry complete with high viz markings and a thumping great road roller on the back, but one did just that outside my house a few years ago. He made a real mess of himself but fortunately he survived.
Perhaps different considerations to the police's actions because different goals? Medics are taught "if you hear hooves first think horses, not zebras" because they are judged on fixing people's health issues quickly. But the "products" of the police are often "evidence for court cases". Where the lawyers' role is to insist "but you only heard the sound did you not? So I put it to you that we cannot be sure you heard a horse and not, say, a zebra - or indeed a man with a pair of coconut shells?"
Not sure I follow. Possibly something to do with more than a couple of pints of good ale to celebrate some good news or very possibly just me being thick.
I was purely pointing out that sometimes the extraordinarily unlikely does happen. I witnessed it and the aftermath, or I would never have believed it myself. I make no comment on the case in the article itself or the police actions or lack of.
Well I'm envious of the ale if it was your good news!
(unlikely things are still possible) - true. In which case consider my comment directed towards HP's "I can't believe it!" of the police rather than yours. It does irk that police do seem to drop further investigation of certain types of cases rather early - even if we can predict that a court is likely to take a more skeptical line (as brooksby suggests "but when was the door opened?")...
The road.cc article and the bbc article say that Mr Walczak rode into the open door of a stationary car. At a risk of being all devil's advocatey, nowhere does it actually say that the door was opened so suddenly/late that he couldn't avoid it (ie. a classic dooring), just that he rode into an open car door.
Whatever, it clearly demonstrates that vulnerability that so many motorists don't seem to think exists.
How can it possibly be NFA when a driver kills someone like this? Disgraceful.