Bike rider injured in Avenue I ‘dooring’ crash

Second Brooklyn incident this month

January 7, 2019 By Paula Katinas Brooklyn Daily Eagle

The bicycle rider was traveling west on Avenue I when the crash took place, police said. Image from Google Maps

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For the second time this month, a Brooklyn bicycle rider was the victim of so-called “dooring” crash.

The most recent incident took place on Sunday in Kensington, according to police, who said a 57-year-old man riding his bike on Avenue I was seriously injured when he collided with the door of a parked car that had been opened at that same moment by the vehicle’s driver.

The cyclist was traveling west on Avenue I at approximately 12:30 p.m. when the driver of a parked car near East 2nd Street opened his door, striking the rider, police said.

The victim was taken to Maimonides Medical Center. Police said he was listed in critical condition.

Police did not release the name of the victim or the driver. The NYPD’s Highway Unit and Collision Investigation Squad are looking into the crash.

The “dooring” crash comes on the heels of a deadly collision that took place in Sunset Park on New Year’s Day.

The victim, Hugo Alexander Sinto Garcia Garcia, a 26-year-old bagel shop worker, was riding an electric bike north on Third Avenue near 28th Street shortly before 6 a.m. on Jan. 1 when the driver of a parked 2009 Toyota taxi cab suddenly opened the door, police said.

Garcia was knocked into the path of oncoming traffic, police said, where he was struck by a passing 2013 Nissan driven by a 53-year-old man.

The victim was taken to NYU Langone Hospital-Brooklyn, where he was pronounced dead.

Joseph Cutrufo, communications director for the advocacy group Transportation Alternatives, said “dooring” is dangerous.

“Dooring is what happens when a driver or passenger opens a door of a vehicle (ostensibly without looking) in the path of an oncoming bicyclist,” Cutrufo recently told the Brooklyn Eagle.

Transportation Alternatives is calling on the de Blasio Administration to install more protected bike lanes — designated areas separated from vehicular traffic by barriers like planters, posts or parked cars — on streets around the city.

Ellen McDermott, co-interim director of Transportation Alternatives, went as far as to say that that the fatal New Year’s Day crash could have been prevented if the city had put in a protected bike lane.