The Dutch Reach (around)

A year or two ago, I started seeing traffic on the book of faces touting the Dutch Reach.

Perhaps you've seen something about it, and thought to yourself, "Hey, yeah, that sounds like something people should do!"

If you aren't familiar with it, the "Dutch Reach" teaches motorists to reach for the door handle with the right hand (assuming left-hand-drive cars as are common in the United States) as a way to assure that they will look over their left shoulders before opening the car door, to keep from opening said car door into the immediate path of a cyclist. The push for this, largely via cycling-focused forums, was as an idea to reduce dooring crashes.

Like so many crackpot ideas one sees online, I dismissed it as hokum at first.

But the idea persisted. People kept talking about it.

So I decided to test the Dutch Reach (around) a few times, in an assortment of motor vehicles.

The first thing I noticed was that I can (and habitually do) reach my seat belt buckle with my right hand. While reaching for the buckle, I can almost always keep looking straight ahead at what would be my path of travel, except that I also habitually buckle my seat belt before I move the car.

The seat belt buckle, in its stored position, is often eighteen inches or more abaft of the door latch (depending on the car--some latches are even farther forward). Many people are kind of lazy about a lot of things, and one expects a certain laxity regarding twisting torsos when opening car doors. Depending on others' perfect compliance is not a good idea for preventing dooring crashes.

Strike one.

After two years and numerous essays (mostly copy-pasted from the releases by the guy who coined the term in the first place), I doubt that the number of motorists who have heard the term reaches a significant minority. To rely on a "safety process" than fewer than ten (or maybe even fewer than five) percent of motorists knowing for ones own safety is patently absurd, especially when it's so easy to not have dooring crashes by simply staying the heck out of the door zone in the first place.

Strike two.

When I was testing the "Dutch Reach," I found that, without exception, I had a better view of the area where a cyclist might be sneaking up on a dooring crash by using the side mirror. The structure supporting the roof of the vehicle (B-pillar, door frame around the window, etc.) blocked my view entirely when looking over my shoulder. Looking over my shoulder was a waste of time. I already use the side mirror to look for traffic before opening my car door (I parallel park pretty often). I don't want another motorist to take my door off the car!

Strike three.

Teaching the "Dutch Reach" is, then, a waste of time. In our information-saturated lives, it would be far better to teach cyclists to stay out of the door zone and teach motorists to respect cyclists' need to stay out of the door zone. Quoting a friend, "The 'Dutch Reach' is not harmless. It doesn't work. And it normalizes door zone riding."

Ride well away from the Door Zone, people.