Typically, a person sitting in the driver's seat of a car opens the door with the hand closest to it. It makes sense since doors are designed to be opened that way. Pull the handle and immediately the door is open. But if you happen to do that at the wrong time, you may create an obstacle (障碍) for a passing cyclist without knowing it. Then the cyclist will be sent falling off the bike, and the car door is likely to be damaged by the fast-moving bicycle.
Obviously the solution is for the person getting out of the vehicle to check for oncoming traffic, but car door design and long-time habits have made the process instinctual. Luckily, there's a simple way to solve the problem: the Dutch reach. In other words, instead of using your left hand, reach for the door latch (门锁) with your right hand. This will force you to turn your body. At least, you'll look into your side view mirror to see whether any car or bike is coming.
"It's just what Dutch people do," said Fred Wegman, the former managing director of the National Institute for Road Safety Research in the Netherlands. "All the Dutch are taught it. It's part of regular driver education. "
The technique dates back about 50 or 60 years, and it was very popular between the 1960s and the 1980s. But it didn't really become known as the Dutch reach until a retired American physician named Michael Charney started the Dutch Reach Project in 2016 in an effort to popularize the practice in the United States and beyond. According to The Times, he was motivated by the death of a 27-year- old who rode into an open car door and died just five blocks from his home in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Charney's efforts may be paying off. Both Massachusetts and Illinois now include the Dutch reach in their drivers' manuals (手册).
