The Law Offices of James M. Freeman, P.C.

Mario sent the following e-mail:

Lawyer Jim, I have heard of people getting "doored" by cabbie passengers. How would that be handled?

In my experience about 30% of crashes in Chicago are doorings. Doorings are discouraging because they are completely avoidable. It never ceases to amaze me how people will just fling open the doors of their cars without any consideration for approaching traffic. Doorings violate both Illinois and Chicago law. Typically driver side dooring cases are hard to defend unless the dooring happened at night and the cyclist didn't have a headlight.

Anti-dooring.org provides some information and advice with respect to drivers and cyclists alike about the dangers of doorings. This site seems to confirm my observation that about 30% of cycling related crashes are the result of doorings.

Under Illinois law it is illegal to open your door into traffic: