Dutch reach being taught in America

[opik_bidin]

Can Australia also introduce this dutch reach as part of driver education?

and here is dutch reach guide:
https://www.dutchreach.org/dutch-reach-instructions/

A Guide & Gallery for Road Safety Officials, Experts & Advocates
This introduction details the Dutch Reach far-hand habit for safest exiting of vehicles. Comparison is made to the near-hand habit which it should replace for reasons soon to be made clear. Below the Guide you can see how this countermeasure is instructed by other governments, road safety experts and advocates.

'Dutch Reach' instructions range from a few words - Open with far hand - to multiple steps. No one phrase, text or set of steps fits all. But the examples below may help you craft your own version. Other wording, graphics & videos can be found elsewhere on this site, including accounts in 27 languages & versions for left-side of road nations.

Feel free to browse the Gallery below first. But come back up for the talk!..:
A GUIDED TOUR OF 'DUTCH REACH'
The Dutch Reach can be taught in one short phrase. However truly safe exiting requires multiple steps before, during & after its signature move.

Wonderfully, the far-hand habit automatically prompts - even compels - all succeeding steps. And each new step adds more safety, as will be explained.

While you work to craft concise instructions, it's worth keeping in mind the hidden steps and rationales. This knowledge may shape your final wording. It may also help you draft curricula or prepare briefings, press releases, behavior change campaigns, advocacy letters, etc.

So please consider this detailed set of 'Dutch Reach' instructions:
Turn off ignition, set brake, release seat belt.
Check both outside and inside rear-view mirrors for vehicles & cyclists in back and in adjacent bike or travel lanes.
Using hand further from door, Reach across to door latch. [Note: This forces upper body & head to turn outward; the near hand habit does not cause rotation.]
Mid-swivel, (again) Check side/wing mirror. [Note: Near hand habit does not induce side-mirror use.]
Twist further, look out the side & back over outer shoulder for oncoming road users. [Note: Near hand habit again encourages neither. In fact using near hand on latch cripples shoulder-check as it freezes the outer shoulder. This blocks torso rotation. One's turned head & eyes cannot twist further to get the view directly back.
Still vigilant for oncoming traffic, Unlatch door but keep hand grasped upon handle.
If safe, with near hand now assisting, Open door a few inches & lean slightly out to gain a clear, unobstructed view back for approaching traffic.
[Note: On this point multiple advantages result --
a) Reaching across ones body to operate the latch and open the door automatically curbs sudden, wide or flung opening. This habituated safety gain over the near hand push or thrust habit is immense -- and vastly under-appreciated: Few people can push or shove a door wide open using the far arm. And no one can if their far-hand latch grip is kept hold. But a near-hand push or shove allows and even encourages door throwing.

b) Fast, flung, ambush opening startles or completely blindsides cyclists. Too often it results in grave harm. A handlebar nick can crash the bicyclist and throw them into the roadway. A direct hard impact of bike or body, or desperate swerving with loss of control, cause violent crashes, against or even over the door wall. Even without loss of control a quick swerve to avoid direct dooring puts the cyclist in path of vehicles and can prove fatal.

c) Far hand on door latch and near hand on arm rest retain one's ability to retract door quickly, or prevent a gust blowing it open - which can also damage the door.

d) Window, door frame & 'B' pillar no longer limit exiter's view back.

e) The side mirror alone cannot provide full safety. In addition to misadjustment, blindspots, glare, darkness, compromising dirt or water, etc., once a motorist shifts or turns their head or, if the side mirror is door-mounted and the door then opened, its view back is completely lost. Some side mirrors now include a small convex secondary mirror which, though distorting, may help. However the continuous, unobstructed direct view back encouraged and achievable by the Reach method provides the most assured view, and does so just when the decision to open for exit is to be made.

f) The Reach method is especially needed for rear passengers. For they lack all mirrors. Likewise, the inside rear view mirror serves only the driver - and is useless for front passengers.

g) Slow partial opening can warn cyclists & may allow time to yell and cause the operator to retract the door as their hands still control it. This nudge warning gives a cyclist chance to brake or more safely steer to avoid harm.

h) Slight initial opening also allows cyclists more safe space to manuever and reduce swerve risk.

8. All clear? Open slowly. Remain vigilant. Exit facing traffic, ready to retreat if needed. [Note: With far hand still on door latch, drivers & passengers naturally exit facing back. Near hand habit positions motorists to exit facing forward, their back to oncoming traffic. Also, with door still held during exit, occupants are less likely to release and open door to its widest extent - a practice which should be discouraged unless necessary.]

9. Still facing traffic, walk around back of vehicle to gain sidewalk. [Note: The Reach thus guides all vehicle occupants to exit more safely onto the roadway.]

Taken altogether, the Dutch Reach method minimizes dooring risks and harms for cyclists & other vulnerable road users and their vehicles. It is also safer for drivers & passengers at no cost but for habit retraining. It avoids door damage, traffic violations, fines, license loss, insurance claims & point penalties, civil liability & criminal prosecutions, life disruptions & delays, work time or employment loss, shame and guilt. Society too is spared needless police, rescue, hospital long term medical costs, road blockage, municipal, court and other resource depletion.

As shown, the Dutch Reach increases the safety margin of drivers who already exercise some caution on exiting. It would greatly reduce the hazard of drivers (found by British survey at 35%) and passengers who habitually do not.

See also: Far Hand is Safer Than You Think!, The Habit of Safety & Practice Tips.

A Comment on Dooring
Most motorists & passengers are unaware of dooring risks or the coinages 'dooring,' 'car-dooring' or 'doored.' Fewer know 'Dutch Reach', or why our near hand 'commonsense' push habit is dangerously flawed. They also may not know the term 'Vulnerable Road User,' or that doorings involve not just bicyclists, but also motorcyclists, mopeds, scooters, joggers in-like skaters even pedestrians; also that trucks, buses, streetcars, vans, pickups or other cars can be 'doored,' or door them, taking doors & lives with them


https://mobilitylab.org/2018/12/11/next ... estination

You’ve just parked your car. It’s time to open the door and get out. Which hand do you use to reach for the handle?

It may sound like a trick question — most Americans have used the hand closest to the door, and only that hand, since they could first open the door for themselves. But in January, driving instructors around the country will be teaching the opposite, a method borrowed from the Netherlands and often called the “Dutch Reach” or the “far-hand technique.”

In the Netherlands, you exit a car with the hand farthest from the door (the right hand if driving). This initiates a modest twist, causing you to look in the direction of your car’s blind spot. Most importantly: you’ll see if there’s a cyclist rapidly heading your way.

It may seem like a small thing, but people on bikes have died from “doorings” when motorists haven’t looked before opening the door.

Many large U.S. cities have signed on to Vision Zero and aim to eliminate all traffic deaths and serious injuries. But accident rates have remained stubbornly high throughout the nation.

According to the National Highway Safety and Transportation Administration, 783 cyclists died in the US in traffic accidents with passenger vehicles in 2017. That is a decrease from 2016, which had the most deaths ever recorded at 852.

The NHSTA doesn’t count doorings, but a 2015 Vancouver study found them to be the most common type of bike accident there, accounting for 15 percent of all incidents. According to the English nonprofit Cycling UK, eight bicyclists died from doorings in the United Kingdom between 2011 and 2015.

Opening your car door without looking is not just a danger to bikers says Peter Furth, a civil and environmental engineering professor at Northeastern University. “If you open your door without looking, you can lose a door,” says Furth. “And you can lose your life.”

For inspiration in preventing these accidents, some Americans are looking to the Netherlands, where there are a lot more bikers and the roads are a lot safer. The Dutch have about a third as many traffic fatalities per capita as in the United States. Bikes are used for a quarter of all trips in the Netherlands, more than anywhere else in the world.

One of the people paying attention was Michael Charney, a retired physician in Cambridge, Massachusetts, who sought solutions online after a dooring accident near his house killed a person biking. Charney popularized the name, the “Dutch Reach” and has evangelized for its adoption.

Last year, at Charney’s urging, Massachusetts added it to their driver’s manual, followed by Illinois this April. Starting in January, both AAA and the National Safety Council, providers of driving instruction to millions of Americans each year, will both add the technique to their curriculums.


The simplicity of the technique has contributed to its appeal, says Alex Epstein, director of transportation safety at the National Safety Council.

“When I first heard of it, I thought, ‘this is genius,’” says Epstein. “This is an easy, free way to remind yourself, as the driver, to be mindful on exiting the vehicle.”

But in the Netherlands, there is no name for the “Dutch Reach” at all. It is not a technique, says Fred Wegman, professor emeritus of traffic safety at Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands.

The driving exam does include demonstrating turning and looking for bikers. But learning to turn is part of a broader education about traffic safety that begins when children are 10 to 12 years old.

Wegman says, “At the age of nine, 10, these kids are inclined to go on their bike on their own. Because there is no school bus system, children learn traffic safety so they can commute to school unaccompanied by adults.

“They have one year in the curriculum, public education, with a focus on biking,” Wegman says. “They have theoretical and practical education. There’s some sort of highway code in the theoretical part, and also an exercise on the road.”

The program culminates with children earning a “bicycle diploma.” Later, private driving school in the Netherlands continues that education for teenagers, rather than in the United States where learning to drive is often the one and only time a person learns the rules of the road.

Besides education, the Netherlands is light years ahead of the United States in building its bike network. A good way to prevent cars and bikes from hitting each other — including doorings — is to physically move them apart.

The Netherlands has over 22,000 miles of protected bike lanes separate from car traffic called cycle tracks. They have also dramatically reduced passenger vehicle speed in urban areas. Study after study has shown that these measures make streets safer.

These changes did not happen overnight. Beginning in the 1970s, when the Netherlands had an oil crisis similar to the one in the US, the nation began to prioritize safety and to heavily invest in the future of biking. Now generations of Hollanders have earned their bicycle diplomas and much of the country is connected by cycle tracks. Wegman’s daughters learned to use their far hand in school just as he did several decades ago.

The question for American cycling advocates and safety experts is whether the Dutch Reach can have an impact on safety by itself without the accompanying Dutch education and Dutch infrastructure.

Furth, the professor in Boston, isn’t sure. He thinks that the Dutch Reach can help, but that education is not as effective as infrastructure when it comes to increasing safety.

“Infrastructure is nuts and bolts. It costs money. It uses road space. And everybody is trying to find a way to solve this problem without biting the bullet,” Furth says.

But American traffic education and bicycling infrastructure may be changing too, ever so slowly.

Even if it is just one small curriculum change, William Van Tassel, AAA manager of Driver Training Operations, believes that the far-hand technique — as AAA refers to it — fits in with a larger trend. According to Van Tassel, the technique signals a shift in focus for American driving instruction towards bicycles and pedestrians.

“The technique signals a shift in focus for American driving instruction towards bicycles and pedestrians.”
“We’ve increased our content regarding sharing the roads with cyclists and other vulnerable road users quite a bit,” Van Tassel says. “It could easily be something that grows as a mode of transportation as we move forward, so we’d like to stay ahead of that if we can.”

American roads are also evolving. Although U.S. cities have experimented with different kinds of protected bike lanes, many municipalities have been reluctant to deviate from the bike guide put out by AASHTO, the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials.

The guide has never included cycle tracks like in the Netherlands, but a draft of the new edition, released in September, shows that change is likely. The updated AASHTO Guide for the Development of Bicycle Facilities will likely be an influential resource for engineers and urban planners around the US.

But Furth notes that the changes, if approved, are long overdue and still far behind the manuals currently in use in the Netherlands.

“The Dutch have been recommending cycle tracks for their through roads since at least 1935, so this puts us at least 80-some years behind them,” Furth says.

New automotive technology, he says, may play a big part in preventing doorings and making the roads safer for bikers, pedestrians, and drivers.

“Cars we are starting to build now are smart,” Furth says. “I could have a car that when it’s locked, the mirror automatically bends in. People riding their bike would know — if it’s a bent-in mirror, you can ride right next to the door because the doors on that car are locked.”

For now, we have the Dutch Reach. It is still early, but traffic safety experts are hopeful and cautiously optimistic.

Alex Epstein, at the National Safety Council, says, “Getting people to do things in their own self-interest is not the easiest thing in the world sometimes, even if its a proven safety behavior, like not texting and driving or like the far reach.”

“Human nature is a funny thing,” he says.

[antigee]

'Cars we are starting to build now are smart,” Furth says. “I could have a car that when it’s locked, the mirror automatically bends in. People riding their bike would know — if it’s a bent-in mirror, you can ride right next to the door because the doors on that car are locked.” ' ...had to laugh at that...onus back on the cyclists' behaviour, 100% acceptance that on street parking is essential and others have to suck it up

UK also announced Dutch Reach could be included in the Highway Code review....

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/201 ... t-cyclists

[cage]

The Dutch Reach is a waste of time. I doesn't force you to look in the rear vision mirror or over your shoulder & down the road. People will simply look at the door handle they are reaching for.