Is the Dutch Reach really Dutch?

"Is the Dutch Reach Dutch?"
"Not true!"
"I've never heard of it and I'm Dutch!"
"Is it really common practice in the Netherlands?"
"Was it ever?"
"Is it now?"
"Did the Dutch really invent it?"
"But I learned it / But we do it - in Belgium, Germany, France, Sweden...?"

So, not quite lost amid those cheering the Dutch Reach and trusting this Project's claims for its Dutch provenance and reputable authority, are some serious doubters and disbelievers.

So we get questions~!   And aside from the inevitable but surprisingly rare troll, these questions are usually reasonable - though often only anecdotally based.  The questions need to be answered.  Of the hoaxing and disinformation spread to mock or even undermine this safety recommendation, they require other remedies such as here & here.

It would have been irresponsible not to have established that the far hand method and this Project deserved a Dutch imprimatur.   For today, even among ordinary bicyclists, the Netherlands is often known as a mecca of superior road sharing, a safety culture rich with innovative and sensible multi-modal infrastructure.

Holland's present imprimatur is all the more impressive and worthy given that NL was far from always a safe place to walk, bike, moped or drive.  The far hand method was one simple, easy, fast and obvious innovation which helped curb the road carnage of a half century ago.

So an serious effort was made by this Project to ask and answer the above questions before going public under its adopted aegis, before the term first appeared in print, long before the Outside Online video was a videographer's glimmer, and months before this website first saw screen light.

Proofs were found:  There is very credible authority and evidence for claims of early introduction in the Netherlands, its official standing and teaching, and for its history of commonplace use in NL.

However levels of actual practice among the Dutch in past and present - and awareness of its history and provenance - have likely varied over its said 50 years of age.

Of far hand method use elsewhere in Europe, none should doubt.  But no evidence or claim has yet been told, provided or found that any country aside from Holland has had it as a common practice for decades, made it part of its officially recommended driver exiting practice, tests for its use when licensing new drivers, or considers it a national practice - at least not yet.

The Dutch far hand exiting method never acquired a name in Dutch -- no one has yet produced a Dutch term for it or suggested otherwise.  It was just "the way you open a car door" -- that is, just commonsense.  And being 'commonsense' and nameless, very little has yet been found in past writings -- in Dutch let alone in English at least via internet search.  Other countries, including those just mentioned, have apparently also lacked a name for the far hand method - as evidenced by current adoption of the term in foreign professional and social media of "Dutch Reach" 'a la Anglais', or using direct translations for 'Dutch' and 'Reach' into the native language.

Additional authority or evidence supportive or contrary to those provided here, or any historical or social research papers in this subject, is invited from readers of this Dutch Reach Project page. It will be welcomed!

Indeed, within days of the Project's first coverage, an expatriate American journalist in Eindhoven NL challenged the 'Dutch' attribution and use status claim in NL.  She denied ever having witnessed or heard of the practice in the Netherlands herself -- and was fast in the belief the American coiner was mistaken. She had intended to debunk the Project's claim but stepped back when provided then available authoritative documentation.

Modern tourists including cycling advocates on fact-finding visits to NL both have and have not been informed of it over the years.  And the first person the Project corresponded with at the Dutch Cycling Embassy did not know of it! Age may have some role here as I will later suggest.

It is considered the preferred way to pass the safe egress standard set by Dutch traffic code, and is still to be found in Dutch driver education videos and  taught by instructors, and it is still rated on NL licensing road tests -- though to what extent is not here known.

I have been repeatedly informed by credible witnesses and expert sources nonetheless that the Dutch have indeed used this method over the past 50 years to such a degree to be considered commonplace, particularly in the cities. [If any readers can research the legislative history behind the high standard required for safe exiting, which favors if not demands the far hand method, and encourages it's inclusion in Dutch driver instruction, please help!]

I have explanations of my own for these discrepant impressions on its current and historical use which I suspect involves individual and cultural memory and likely the decline of necessity in NL for use of this method, and will share them below.

But first let me provide references.

1) Hans Voerknecht who is a Dutch Transport expert, formerly I believe with Nederland Fietsland, now with CROW.NL a premier NL transport design firm provided direct professional knowledge.

His testimony in response to questions put by email are presented at Advocates Toolkit > Dutch Law & Culture. There find links to the NL code/regulations website where one can confirm the legal claim..

Mr. Voerknecht provided the translations of the code and instructional regulation. A volunteer to DRP translated the Dutch driver instructional video beneath in which the use of the far hand is taught and demonstrated, and students are warned that they could be tested on it and could fail should they not exit properly.

2) Professor Ruth Oldenziel, of Technische Universiteit Eindhoven, provided apparently the first American press report of the NL's 'far hand method' in interview to a New York Times newspaper reporter in 2011.  Her claim to authority on such matters is considerable:

Dr. Oldenziel is an historian of bicycling in NL and Europe at Eindhoven's Stichting Historie der Techniek / Foundation for the History of Technology.  She is lead editor of Cycling Cities: The European Experience: Hundred Years of Policy and Practice (2016), Editors: Ruth Oldenziel, Martin Emanuel, Adri Albert de la Bruhèze, Frank Veraart.

3) Martine Powers for the Boston Globe independently noted the far hand practice while researching a feature on cycling in NL in 2013: A cyclist’s mecca, with lessons for Boston.

4) Also: a) A current spokesman for the Dutch Cycling Embassy recently - contrary to my initial contact - confirmed and touted the Dutch far hand method publicly but I will need some time to locate that citation should you wish it as well.

b) Bradley Campbell of PRI - The World, BBC World Service, at WGBH public radio Boston, MA, USA, who assists Marco Werman the host (both of whom are bicyclists) and invited me to be interviewed on that program, told me he was informed of the far hand method on a recent visit to NLby his tour guide.

5) Other: The City of New Haven, Connecticut, USA, promoted the far hand method in 2013 which the transportation planning department called "the Amsterdam method" -- though I am not aware how they arrived at this attribution as it occurred after the NYT's story above. viz: http://www.newhavenindependent.org/index.php/archives/entry/dooring/

Over the past 10 years US and Canadian advocates appear to have learned of the then nameless method and also occasionally tried to promote it, see San Francisco, Toronto, Montreal, Portland OR.

So trusting my senior sources I am quite convinced that the far hand method does exist in NL, had at one point been embedded into their road culture and driver training programs, and may still be tested for on the licensing road tast, and still is being practiced -- though to what extent is currently at issue.

I have several plausible explanations for our encountered discrepant reports:

1) Stop de Kindermord: See: https://www.dutchreach.org/car-child-murder-protests-safer-nl-roads/

I believe but cannot prove, that the far hand method came to prominence during the reforms prompted by the carnage on NL streets in the 1970's as their economy recovered and motor vehicles & moped resumed killing pedestrians and cyclists in ever larger numbers. This supports the claim that the far hand method was once widely adopted and used in NL, particularly in large cities where such crashes would have been most frequent and need strongest. Evidence of any campaign or efforts to promote the practice may exist but are not yet known of to me.

The social history of this time and of the progress made by the parents' protest movement is not yet available here in the US, if it is in NL or Europe or even Dr. Oldenziel's volume -- which I have, after 5 months trying - still failed to receive despite conerted efforts by my library's staff!

2) The success of NL in going from 3300 road deaths a year with a population of 13M in the '70s to 584 per year most recently with a population of 19M, and fewer t than a handful - perhaps only 2 - deaths attributed to doorings in that 584, would lead one to believe that progress has been considerable to say the least.

For that reason, the need for the far hand method due to culture change, separated bike tracks, and that 40% of the population now cycles, is much reduced and possibly the method has become unnecessary and forgotten.

3) Possible failure of individual recall since their driver training and exam; failure of modern road examiners to look for or test for the far hand method or an equivalent degree of safe exiting; or other reasons for unreliable reporting, and disproportionate skepticism among website commenters and trollers etc. might also account for the discrepant reports to some degree.

Yet I am finding on Twitter where the subject has been spreading internationally with ease, doubters are pushed back if not overwhelmed or discouraged by the numbers who either enthuse about the method or quickly push back on the skeptic from their own knowledge of its use in NL.

4) Sampling error? But then these are likely mostly young people on social media sites. We are not hearing from the older generations in NL or the rare older twittering expatriates abroad, so our social media and news website commentator samples are no doubt likely weighted toward the a-historical.

Virtually all cyclists in the US, let along the general US and world populations have no idea of what NL went through in 1970s to prompt the Stop de Kindermord movement which launch NL on the path to the cycling and road sharing mecca it is today.

Perhaps the people of Denmark have had a different historical and cultural motive for safer road sharing practice. And this I would love to learn. (I have been told the far hand method is also taught & used in DK, GE, SE, FR & BE to some unknown extent, though no to my current knowledge by virtue of an official standard.) But it is natural that younger NL generations do not know about horrifying epidemic road morbidity and mortality decades before their maturity or birth. They have grown up in an entirely different world of road sharing civility.

I hope this answers your puzzlement. This is a defense I have needed to assemble so thank you for the opportunity to put it together!

If questions linger or if you make other discoveries one way or the other, PLEASE share them with me.

Moreover, I welcome receiving links to your broadcast or web coverage on this issue!

Note:  An early, briefer discussion of this issue may be found in the "Dutch Reach Review Article" draft, in Section 1.4

Michael L. Charney, MD (retired)
Dutch Reach Project
Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA

www.dutchreach.org
dutchreachorg@gmail.com

revised: May 26, 2019.