Illinois to start tracking bicycle dooring collisions
For the first time, the State of Illinois will start keeping track of dooring collisions-accidents that happen when a bicyclist rides into an open car door.
Governor Quinn ordered Illinois police departments to start recording dooring accidents on crash forms typically used for motor vehicle accidents.
The Illinois Deparmtment of Transportation will incorporate the dooring data into their annual traffic accident reports.
By ordering the tracking, officials believe this is the first step in reducing the amount of dooring crashes and thereby reducing injuries and deaths caused by the collisions.
Governor Quinn order the new rules after reading an article that appeared in the Chicago Tribune on March 21. It had been the policy of the Illinois Department of Transportation, not to report the collisions because the vehicles involved were not moving at the time of the accident.
The safety advocacy group, The Active Transportaion Alliance, had appealed to officials with the Illinois Department of Transportation to include the dooring collisions in their data, but to no avail.
It is the Alliance's hope to secure funding for educating drivers and bicyclists as to the risks and what is needed to make the roads safer for bicyclists.
