It happens fast. You are riding your bike along Main Street in Hyannis, keeping to the right edge of the lane, moving at a normal pace, and without any warning a parked car’s door swings open directly into your path. You have no time to stop, nowhere to go, and the impact throws you from the bike. This type of accident is called a dooring crash, and it is one of the most common serious bicycle injury scenarios in towns with active street parking, which describes most of downtown Hyannis and the surrounding commercial areas perfectly.
Dooring crashes cause severe injuries. Cyclists hit by an opening car door are often thrown into moving traffic, and the secondary impact with a passing vehicle is frequently more dangerous than the door itself. Even without that secondary impact, broken collarbones, wrist fractures, shoulder injuries, and head trauma are common outcomes.
What surprises many people after a dooring crash is that the law is actually quite clear on who is responsible. A Hyannis personal injury attorney can tell you that Massachusetts law places the duty squarely on the person opening the door.
Massachusetts Law on Dooring
Massachusetts General Laws Chapter 90, Section 14 specifically addresses this. It states that no person shall open a door of a motor vehicle on the side available to moving traffic unless it is reasonably safe to do so and can be done without interfering with the movement of other traffic, including cyclists. The law explicitly covers bicyclists.
What this means for your injury claim is significant. The person who opened the door had a legal duty to check for approaching cyclists before opening it. If they failed to do that and you were injured as a result, they were negligent as a matter of law. A personal injury lawyer in Hyannis will also look at whether the driver directed the passenger to exit quickly or if there were other circumstances connecting the driver to the door opening.
The Dutch Reach: A Prevention Technique Worth Knowing
The Dutch Reach is something worth knowing about, both as a rider and as someone building a legal case. The technique, which originated in the Netherlands and has gained attention in the United States in recent years, involves opening a car door with the far hand instead of the near hand. A driver opens with their right hand instead of their left, which forces the body to rotate toward the window and naturally brings any approaching cyclist into view before the door is fully open.
Several US states and cities have included the Dutch Reach in driver education materials. The reason it is relevant to a dooring injury claim is that it reinforces the established standard of care: a driver or passenger opening a door in active traffic is expected to look first. The existence of a widely recognized, easy-to-implement safety practice that the person failed to use strengthens the argument that their behavior fell below a reasonable standard of care.
What to Do Immediately After a Dooring Crash
Get the name and contact information of whoever opened the door, not just the vehicle owner. If a passenger opened the door, their information matters separately. Get the driver’s information as well.
Photograph the car door, your bicycle, the street, and your injuries. Document where you landed relative to the vehicle. Note whether there were bike lanes or shared-road markings on the road indicating that cyclists are expected in that space.
If there were any witnesses, people on the sidewalk, people in nearby businesses, or other drivers, get their contact information before they leave the scene. Dooring crashes happen fast and witnesses can provide independent accounts that are difficult for the door-opener’s insurance company to dismiss.
Call 911 and get a police report filed. Some dooring crashes happen in situations where the door-opener is apologetic and the cyclist feels okay in the moment and skips the report. This is almost always a mistake. Injuries that feel manageable initially often develop into something more serious, and without a police report it becomes much harder to document that the crash actually happened.
Insurance Coverage in a Dooring Crash
The person who opened the door is liable for your injuries. Their auto insurance should cover the claim. Under Massachusetts law, property damage to your bicycle, your medical expenses, your lost wages, and your pain and suffering are all recoverable damages.
If the person who opened the door is uninsured, your own auto insurance uninsured motorist coverage may apply. This is one reason why cyclists who also own cars should check whether their auto policy extends UM coverage to bicycle accidents. Policies vary on this point, and a personal injury lawyer in Hyannis can help you understand what your policy actually covers.
Special Considerations for Downtown Hyannis Riding
The commercial areas around Main Street, Sea Street, and the Hyannis waterfront have a mix of parallel parking, bike infrastructure of varying quality, and heavy pedestrian and vehicle traffic during summer months. Cyclists in these areas face elevated dooring risk simply because of the density of parked cars and the constant turnover of drivers who may not be accustomed to looking for bikes before they exit their vehicles.
Tourist season amplifies this. Visitors who are not accustomed to urban cycling environments are less likely to check their mirrors before swinging a door open. They are also more likely to be distracted, unfamiliar with the area, and rushing to get somewhere.
If you ride regularly in downtown Hyannis and have been doored or come close to it, you are experiencing something that happens here with real frequency. When it results in injuries, a Hyannis personal injury attorney can make sure you are not left paying out of pocket for someone else’s failure to look before they opened their door.
