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Florida man's motto: If at first you don't succeed ...
By adamg on Fri, 06/27/2008 - 7:47am
Boston Police report that a Seminole, Fla. man, enraged on having his open door hit by another driver's bumper on Hyde Park Avenue, resorted to fists of fury to try to resolve the situation:
The victim states he attempted to drive around the suspect's car, but, in attempting to do so, his front bumper struck the suspect's open car door. At this point, the victim tells police that the suspect punched his front window and, then, his passenger side rear window. The latter strike caused the window to shatter. When asked about punching the victim's windows, the suspect stated, "I punched his front window and it didn't break. So, I punched the back window."
Officers then treated the man to some northern hospitality at Area E-18.
Meanwhile, as if the Herald doesn't have enough problems already, police report an alleged Dotdrunk rear-ended one of its delivery trucks at Blue Hill Avenue and Fairway Street.
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Comments
Door Opener at Fault
At least in Cambridge, that's the case. I know they were trying to get it to be a state wide regulation, for obvious reasons (you can anticipate and control the opening of your door much more than a motorist of cyclist can anticipate that a given door will be opening).
Almost right...
Yes, in Cambridge the door-opener can be *cited* in such an instance. But in order to be cited, a police officer would have to see it happen -- they don't bother going to court and examining evidence for fairly minor infractions such as most car accidents. The concept of fault comes into play in the insurance settlement, which is a statewide law. Massachusetts insurance law presumes the person who opened the door to be more than 50% at fault, for exactly the reason you stated. Of course, like any other collision (and yes, it would be a collision if the door were moving, since a collision involves two moving bodies), if you can demonstrate through witnesses or whatnot that, say, your door had been open for five minutes and someone rammed into it when they clearly had time to stop, then you wouldn't be at fault. But yeah, insurance law presumes (appropriately, imo) that it's easier for someone in a STOPPED car to turn all the way around and scan thoroughly for oncoming traffic than it is for the person driving down the road to notice every single thing that might possibly enter the roadway and to stop suddenly if one does enter the roadway.
Almost
Cambridge Police officers don't have to be direct witnesses to the act to cite a driver for "opening a car door into traffic."
A few years ago, a bicyclist was killed near Central Square when a person in a parked car opened a car door into the bike lane. Cambridge Police clearly did not witness the incident, yet their recourse was to cite the person who opened the car door for the $25-ish fine. Tragic death, twenty-five bucks. Not a fair deal.
Most drivers don't realize that they can be cited for open a car door into traffic. IMHO the violation ought to be cited far more often than it is. On a bike, I once screamed at a (Boston) police officer who opened his car door in front of me. I was in no actual danger (I'm a defensive bicyclist) but think he may have gotten the message to look first before opening the door.
All this discussion, by the way, got started from the BPD report which doesn't actually state that the guy who opened his car door did so wrongly. The reports reads like the guy behind him may have been trying to maneuver around the open car door -- but may have done so poorly and hit the door in the process. I can't tell from the report who was at fault for the struck door.