Forum menu
Apparently, the bus had CCTV fitted. One would have hoped that would have shown the whole incident.
Looking at some of the previous reporting, it seems that first claim was that a child had opened the door. When that was later resolved the driver then claimed he had only opened it a little. The witnesses say he opened it all the way.
A mate of mine got car-doored the other week, luckily he was riding his Bandit 1200 so it destroyed the door without being much impeded.
This, incidentally, is one of the various reasons that allowing motorbikes in bus lanes improves cycle safety- people are less inclined to step in front of/open doors into/drive out in front of motorbikes because they do more damage in return. (and why the CTC are killing cyclists by opposing it.)
So we should let motorbikes into bus lanes cos they go fast and do a lot of damage when they hit things? Well it's an interesting theory... 😀
No theory- well proven in the real world. Most notably in the UK, TFL ran a series of studies which showed an 11.6% reduction in collision stats for bicycles when the buslanes were shared with motorbikes. Various reasons were put forward but the most convincing one was that people just don't bother looking for bikes, but they do look for motorbikes.
You'd reasonably expect an increase in pushbike vs ptw incidents but it wasn't a serious factor, and far less than the reduction in ped vs pushbike and car vs pushbike.
The evidence was compelling enough that they opened most London bus lanes to motorbikes despite the CTC and LCC's opposition.
(the question was asked, why were they in opposition despite the facts? And again, most likely explanation- PTWs are competition for their market.)