Dooring accidents are mostly a problem in metropolitan areas such as downtown Indianapolis. A dooring accident occurs when a cyclist is cut off by a person opening a car door; often, the cyclist slams into the door and suffers injuries as a result.
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Dooring accidents make up 10 percent of all bicycle-car collisions. The most serious injuries usually occur not by cyclists who run into a door, but by cyclists who swerve to avoid a door and are struck by other cars as a result.
Whose Fault? It Can Go Both Ways
While it seems like the perpetrator of the dooring would always be at fault for these accidents, dooring accidents are not black and white. It depends on which person, the driver or the cyclist, broke the law. For example, most traffic laws require cyclists to use bike lanes or to ride on the right hand side of the road, which places them in close proximity to parked cars. Because drivers (and their passengers) are required to check for cyclists when exiting a car, if a cyclist is doored, typically it is the fault of the person exiting the car.
However, suppose the dooring occurs where there is no traffic present. This could give the driver an argument that the dooring was partly the fault of the cyclist, who had ample room to avoid the door.
To revisit an above scenario, suppose a cyclist swerves out of the way of a door and ends up being struck by another vehicle. In this case, liability could be split any number of ways under Indiana’s comparative fault doctrine, depending on the facts of the case.
The post Are Dooring Accidents Always the Driver’s Fault? appeared first on Doehrman Buba - Indianapolis Injury Attorneys With Decades of Success.
