Bike Lawyers / Solicitors

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Bicycle plaintiffs' lawyers & solicitors are already helping to make the Dutch Reach our cultural norm.

Lawyers and solicitors across the USA and the United Kingdom have begun posting information on the Dutch Reach on their websites to advance dooring awareness, prevention and best safety practices.  Often such posts are of excellent quality, and very much worth sharing (See below).

As the community safety standard shifts to embody the Dutch far-hand dooring countermeasure, litigation on behalf of dooring victims will benefit. It will influence legal argument about the operative 'ordinary care' and  'ordinary practice' expected of drivers & passengers. The personal agency and failure to perform reasonable care by 'doorer' drivers and passengers can be made more evident, and defendant counter-claims of victim responsibility weakened.

Passengers, private & employed drivers, ride-sharing and hackney companies and fleet operators may be held to a higher standard.  Failure to train employees in the Dutch Reach method and to restrict passengers from exiting heedlessly into a travel or bike lane, will be argued as increasingly negligent conduct subject to findings of liability.  While investigating police, prosecutors, judges and juries are now often apparently biased against doored victims at present, arguments by the plaintiffs bar and increased public recognition and adoption of the Dutch Reach may improve odds for justice at court of law and in the public's mind.

Plaintiffs' expert forensic analyses in dooring cases are valuable.  This Project welcomes receiving & sharing trial reports and forensic testimony as the Dutch Reach enters the courtroom.  (A 2002 pre-Dutch Reach dooring forensic analysis is found here.)

Plaintiffs' lawyers and solicitors are invited to contribute news and reports of any use of the Dutch Reach in their litigation efforts. Also, please share news of the Reach with your colleagues. This Project also welcomes examples of your public interest postings describing doorings and the Dutch Reach.  Contact us by email here.

Toronto cyclists, founders of the "Door Prize", have suffered more than their share of doorings this century. Martin & HIllyer Associates' blog summarizes the issues & promising partial solutions. 6 Dec 2019.