Note: Professor Ruth Oldenziel of  Eindhoven University is the lead editor for Cycling Cities: The European Experience. Hundred Years Policy and Practice. View video of Prof. Oldenziel on cycling & sustainability.

Below is the translated text.

Exiting a car

When exiting a car it’s important to prevent dangerous and hindering situations for yourself and other road users. In this tutorial, you will learn how to exit your car safely. At the end of your driver’s exam you might be asked to exit the car and wait inside the driver’s center to find out whether you passed. This is done to observe how you exit the car and whether you’ll adhere to safety guidelines.

Pay attention, because you could fail your driver’s exam if you don’t!

We will now show you step-by-step how to exit a car safely.

Exiting the car
Step 1
Remove the key from ignition and fold it up, if possible.

Step 2
Look in front of the car, in the inside mirror, the left outside mirror and over your left shoulder!

Step 3
If there’s no oncoming traffic, firmly grab the door handle with your left hand to prevent losing your grip on the door by the wind when opening it. [See 'Vehicle Wind Damage' below].

Step 4
Wait until there is no traffic before you press the button to fold in the outside mirrors.

Step 5
Unlock the door with your right hand!

Step 6
After closing the door, you head into the direction of oncoming traffic to walk to the sidewalk.

Step 7
Once you’ve safely reached the sidewalk, you can lock the car doors with one press on the key(fob).

_______________

Translation most kindly volunteered & provided by Femke Zeilstra  (11 February, 2017).

 

 

AN INFORMAL HISTORY OF THE REACH METHOD

The Reach, opposite or far-hand dooring countermeasure arose to common practice in the Netherlands in the 1970s.  It was a result of a then national road safety movement mobilized by parents of the Stop de Kindermoord protest movement, parents who had lost or feared losing their children to rampant road carnage.

Their protests led the country to adopt major reforms, practices and infrastructure designs to assure that such tragedies would end.  Five decades on a majority of the Dutch have little or no memory of those terrible years,  nor of Stop de Kindermoord and the efforts made by activists and officials which, over time has made NL the road sharing mecca it is today.

Background to the 'reach across' method

1)  Fifty years ago The Netherlands (population 13 million) was NOT a model for road sharing safety.

2) NL citizens were suffering terrible road carnage.  Over 3300 people, including 450-500 children - and several hundred more teenagers, were killed in traffic crashes in NL in 1972. (See traffic fatality chart by age at right)

3) NL was finally recovering economically from WWII. More and more motor vehicles and mopeds were now contesting the streets filled with pedestrians and bicycles.

4) Grieving and aggrieved parents took to reclaim the streets from motor vehicle mayhem:  Their 'Stop de Kindermoord (Stop Child Murder) protest campaign led to the Dutch revolution in road safety which we envy today. [In Amsterdam the Provo's also fought against the 'modernizing' city government whose urban plan would destroy the Jewish ghetto where the radical squatters movement was based, by running a motor way through it. And the Fietsband as well strongly opposed the tearing out of bike tracks to make room for car 'culture'.]

5) As of 2016, with its population now at 17 million, 625 road fatalities occurred in NL.  Dooring fatalities, while they still do occur, are now rare.  In the early years behavior change practices - traffic code reform led to better driver education and conduct. Infrastructure innovations followed and innovative new road design, signage were implemented.  Procedures to investigate each road incident and correct road conditions has become standard.

6)  Those bad times though are now forgotten in NL and virtually unknown to foreign admirers of NL road safety culture.  Most Dutch citizens now were not aware adults nor even alive at the time.  Many of that reformist age are no longer living.

7)  That the 'reach' method never had a given Dutch name also contributes to its modern obscurity.  It may have arisen independently, spread or was shared across neighboring boarders.  This Project has received reports of the method also being taught and/or practiced in Sweden, Germany, France and Belgium, and in Denmark by the early 70's.

6) But senior citizens and older road safety experts in NL are aware of this history.  The Dutch traffic code reflects those reforms with stringent standards for driver licensing, including the avoidance of dooring. And recent archival research by a Dutch citizen volunteer for this Project has, three years after this effort to document the 'reach' method as having Dutch roots,  now uncovered multiple print sources documenting awareness of the far hand method as early as 1961 as it began to spread into Dutch awareness and road safety teaching.

7) According to older experts and a foremost Dutch cycling historian, the far hand method was once widely considered the way one opens a car door - its hayday likely being the 1970's & 80's.

8)  Dutch driving schools and instructors still teach the method as the best way to pass the vehicle parking and exiting section of the licensing road test. Witness Rijleshulp's vehicle egress instructional video (in Dutch, but an English transcript is found by scrolling far down here).

7) In September 2017, The Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (UK) publicized the Dutch Reach in a video - How to do the Dutch Reach (filmed in NL) which climaxes with a Dutch driving instructor who demonstrates how he teaches student drivers to exit.  He never heard of the term 'Dutch Reach' but that is exactly what he demonstrates.

8) Some time early this century, perhaps as more and more cyclists and road safety expert traveled to the Netherlands to learn about their road sharing revolution, news of the method began percolating out.  That the method was still anonymous - unnamed - did not help. Also, the method was also quite invisible - hard to notice.  The innovative infrastructure and massive presence of cyclists and pedestrians was what caught visitors' attention.

9)  Several names did emerge for the reach measure and were found in print in the 2010s:  In New Haven, CT, USA it was referred to as The Amsterdam or Northern European Cities' method.  In Fort Collins, CO, USA it was dubbed 'the Opposite Hand Trick'.  In San Francisco CA, Montreal Canada, and Victoria AUS, it was just described, no name given or invented.

10)  The tag "Dutch Reach" was coined by a retired Cambridge, MA, USA physician - as he founded this Project - in order to promote the practice with a meaningful and catchy term.  Fortunately it also had - unbeknownst to its chrisen'er- several risque connotations.  This made it extremely interesting, puzzling and attractive to the wired generation - which inspired and powered Outside Online's rapidly viral and internationally popular video posted within two weeks of the Project's first public notice: The Dutch Reach - Safe For Work (9/19/2016).

11)  So indeed, the term "Dutch Reach" was not coined in The Netherlands by a Dutch citizen.  But this simple, ingenious safety measure can justifiably claim to have very strong Dutch heritage if not original provenance.   A better history is yet to be written, if one knew where to look, whom to speak to, if they are still alive....

12)  The point is, that the Dutch Reach method by whatever name and whichever provenance, works! It is far far safer than the near hand alternative. (For comparison see here & here.)

13)  Wikipedia (English edition) now includes a well-referenced Dutch Reach entry under Dooring.  The early version incorrectly asserted that the 'Dutch Reach' was named so because the Dutch are known for bicycle and road safety culture is not sufficiently true.  To set the record straight - I being he who coined the term in 2016 -  referenced the Dutch because based on my understanding at that time, which has since seemed confirmed by archival print evidence and personal communications with Dutch cycling experts. The currently available evidence is consistent and reputable: the method was in very common use in Holland in the decades following Stop de Kindermoord.  And it apparently continues to be taught and practiced to some unknown but demonstrable extent. Thus far I have yet to find or receive documentation that the method was common or as common in any other nearby country at that time.

14) See: Historically Speaking: 'Dutch Reach' for a semi-independent pedigree assessment for the meme.

15)  APPEAL!  Do you have knowledge, oral history, print or documents regarding the origin, implementation and spread of the 'reach' countermeasure in NL or elsewhere?

If so, please do share this information with me by email at Contact!

-- Michael Charney, Dutch Reach Project

The New York Times   Sonntagsrückblick | MEINUNG

Der niederländische Weg: Fahrräder und frisches Brot

Um ein kleines, aber aussagekräftiges Beispiel zu geben, das von meiner Freundin Ruth Oldenziel, Professorin für Technologiegeschichte an der Universität Eindhoven, gezeigt wurde, sollen holländische Fahrer aussteigen, indem sie mit der rechten Hand zum Türschloss greifen.  Dies zwingt einen Fahrer, Schultern und Kopf zu schwenken, so dass man vor dem Öffnen der Tür sehen kann, ob ein Fahrrad von hinten kommt.  Ebenso muss jedes niederländische Kind eine Fahrradsicherheitsprüfung in der Schule bestehen. Die Koexistenz verschiedener Reisemöglichkeiten ist fest mit der Kultur verbunden. 

--- Vierter Absatz [Amateur-Übersetzung von Google unterstützt! - Editor]

The origin of the far hand method is not and may never be settled.

I have heard, seen anecdotal reports, comments, suggestions that it has to some degree been practice in several northern european cities and countries as well as NL as far back as the very early 70s or late 60s.  These include NL, Denmark, Sweden, Germany, Belgium and France.

But thus far it seems NL has been the epicenter of use, and was considered the common sense way to open on exiting possibly now for 5 decades.

A radio program in Denmark which reported on the Dutch Reach campaign in 2016 got a comment from one listener who said he/she was taught it in Denmark in 1973. Another listener, an expatriate from NL living in Denmark said she was taught and tested for it in NL in 1972.

There's no reason to believe that this method couldn't have originated independently in many places with the introduction of the automobile, even before or after the introduction of side/wing mirrors - whose quality even if present could have been far poorer than the ones we have today.

If you or anyone has information on the early history of the reach method please share it with us using Contact!