Dangers and Annoyances
Being doored (colliding with the door of a car unexpectedly opened) is a prominent hazard. Many painted bike lanes run in the door zone. While the law requires caution in opening car doors into traffic lanes, dooring remains common, and doored cyclists face injury and sometimes death. Cyclists must exercise caution, riding a door's length away from parked cars whenever practicable.
Approximately 20 cyclists are killed most years, usually by collision with a moving motor vehicle (including those who are knocked under wheels by a door). Some fatality locations are marked by white-painted ghost bikes. Traffic accidents kill approximately 160 pedestrians per year (about half as many as in the late 20th century) and a lesser number inside cars.
Read more about this topic: Cycling In New York City
Famous quotes containing the words dangers and/or annoyances:
“We are willing enough to praise freedom when she is safely tucked away in the past and cannot be a nuisance. In the present, amidst dangers whose outcome we cannot foresee, we get nervous about her, and admit censorship.”
—E.M. (Edward Morgan)
“What annoyances are more painful than those of which we cannot complain?”
—Marquis De Custine (1790–1857)