‘Dutch Reach’ – What It Is and Why You Need To Know About It

The Highway Code now includes mention of Dutch Reach – a car-door opening technique designed to cut the number of cyclists injured or killed on the road.

Dutch Reach is a technique created to protect cyclists by preventing drivers or passengers from opening their doors in their paths.

Rather than the person in the car opening the door with their right hand, and probably not looking round before doing-so, the Dutch Reach has them use their left hand instead.

How the technique works:

• The driver stops as normal on the left side of the road.
• With their left hand they reach across their body to get to the door handle
• As they turn their body, this movement instinctively makes them look across the door mirror before then looking into the right blind spot over their right shoulder.
• They then safely open the door of the car if the path is clear, having checked the right door mirror and the right blind spot to see all is safe.

The name Dutch Reach derives from the place where it was first developed. In the Netherlands, the Dutch have been taught this technique for years, as there is a very high number of cyclists in that country. Incidents of cyclists striking opening car doors even has a name – “car dooring” (although this has been interpreted by some as “car dooming”, which is also quite apt.) The full Dutch version is a bit more involved. The the driver lowers their window, reaches out of the car with their hand and pulls the external handle to open the door.

Here’s a useful video that shows Dutch Reach in action

The inclusion of the more practical UK version was announced by the then cycling and walking minister Jesse Norman some time ago who said, ‘the benefits of cycling and walking are enormous. We shouldn’t only concentrate on catching and punishing drivers when they make a mistake but try to ensure that they have the skills and knowledge to drive safely alongside cyclists in all conditions.”

Keep your distance

Minimum distances for drivers to safely overtake cyclists have also been written into the Highway Code Rule 163. Currently, the Code states that motorists should give at least as much room as they would when overtaking a car – but this was seen as too vague and open to interpretation by cyclist campaigners.

Instead, a gap of at least 1.5-metre gap must be made by the motorist and if they fail to do that, they risk a fine of £100 and three penalty points on their licence. These new inclusions/considerations are aimed to drive down the high rates of cyclists being killed or seriously injured.

Conclusion

In 2020, 141 pedal cyclists were killed and 4281 seriously injured on UK roads (KSI). A bit of positive news is that in 2022 those figures had fallen to 91 killed and 4056 seriously injured. Whilst figures do not specifically exist for those KSI by car dooring, there is no doubt that if drivers in particular adopted the ‘Dutch Reach’ technique, the figure would come down further.