SF editor's note: With dooring being the single most common cause of injury by motor vehicle users to people riding bikes in San Francisco, New York City sets a great example for using positive messaging to improve the safety of bicycling in the city. The SF Municipal Transportation Agency has placed stickers inside taxis, but safety and bicycle promotional campaigns in the media are the next step.
At a press conference at Union Square this morning, DOT and the Taxi and Limousine Commission announced another facet of the LOOK! campaign, a new video and a decal reminding taxi passengers to exit on the curb side and check for cyclists before opening cab doors.
DOT Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan, Deputy Mayor Howard Wolfson and TLC Commissioner David Yassky were joined at the event by Ken Podziba of Bike New York and Paul Steely White of Transportation Alternatives.
The video will be shown in rotation on Taxi TV. While the video takes a little while to get to the point and, unlike an older LOOK! PSA, sanitizes the experience of a crash, it's a good reminder to taxi passengers, who like many often don't think about cyclists before opening a vehicle door.
Unlike the Ford Crown Victorias that make up most of the current taxi fleet, the Nissan minivan that the TLC has chosen to replace them has sliding doors for backseat passengers.
DOT noted that seven cyclists have been killed in dooring crashes in the past five years. Now if only NYPD and the press corps understood that dooring is illegal behavior, and not an unavoidable "freak accident."
