Perhaps we could add radars that block the door if there is a risk of dooring, either by a bike, or another car.
The car manufacturers have just agreed to put collision mitigation systems in all cars (by 2020 or something), and that requires radars and cameras.
Even better, some cars have radars in the back, too, to identify cross traffic & c. So, identifying potential dooring event as well, might be quite doable using those same radars.
Edit: I forgot that my car also has this 'Blind Spot Indicator', that is, some radars that look to the side and back, to figure out if the other car is in your blind spot. I guess that could be used to prevent dooring, too.
While this could prevent some of the accidents, I'm not sure if the sum effect would be better. Allow me to explain:
According to Google, the average cycling speed is 15.5km/h and the average car length is 4.5m. Surely these will differ a lot from area to area, but they're good for a ballpark measure. This means it takes a cyclist about one second (4.5m / 15.5kmh = 1.05s) to pass a parked car.
Even if you have a car with sensors, if the cyclist is out of your sensors' reach (behind the corner of the previous car), once you open your door, that one second will not be enough for the cyclist to either stop or change course.
What might happen, however, is having sensors could lead to more reckless behavior along the lines of "why do I need to look, I have sensors?".
>According to Google, the average cycling speed is 15.5km/h
That sounds like a speed averaged over a whole trip - including the phases of deceleration and acceleration before/after traffic lights. From my experience, most people are closer to 17-20km/h when traveling, with plenty of fit people going at 24+.
I don't quite see why you're downvoted. The proximity sensors that already exist in many new cars (for parking assistance etc) could do this. Yes, they're not "radars" but for some purposes they work the same.
By blocking the door if you detect an oncoming cyclist, you've created a new problem. What if it false-positives? What if it false-positives and your car is on fire? What if hackers find some way to fool the sensor?
In my mind, this is kind of similar to seat belts.
In case of fire, you can get trapped IF you cannot undo the belt, which does happen, but not always.
What I would do is, provide initial resistance to opening the door; but if you keep pushing, it opens, just slower.
As for the hackers, they can also control your brakes etc, so hacking thing needs to be solved anyways. Note that by 2020 that needs to be solved for every car sold in States, due to the CMBS systems being mandatory by that date.
The car manufacturers have just agreed to put collision mitigation systems in all cars (by 2020 or something), and that requires radars and cameras. Even better, some cars have radars in the back, too, to identify cross traffic & c. So, identifying potential dooring event as well, might be quite doable using those same radars.
Edit: I forgot that my car also has this 'Blind Spot Indicator', that is, some radars that look to the side and back, to figure out if the other car is in your blind spot. I guess that could be used to prevent dooring, too.