Sample Letters to DMV & Officials

Below are sample letters to help activists spur interest and action for the inclusion of the Dutch Reach in their state's driver's manual or code, licensing exam and road test.  The first sample letter is to the Director of Licensing or whomever oversees the licensing curriculum and tests.  Due to security requirements at the motor vehicle department, it may be difficult to attain contact with the Licensing Director.  The DMV or state DOT website may provide an online form, an ombudsman contact or other indirect means to forward your letter to the Director.

If that route proves techically or bureaucratically impervious or you wish to add authority to your request, then...

You can ask one of your elected state officials to forward it to the Licensing Director and request a response and/or opportunity to speak, meet or correspond.  Sample cover letters for your state or local officials - are provided.

It would be well to telephone and speak directly to your elected official or a staff member when you are about to email your cover letter and your companion letter to the Licensing Director. That way you can help assure your letters get proper attention and you will have established contact and awareness with the official or staff should you wish or need to enlist their further assistance.

Gaining the support of your elected official for the Dutch Reach would of course be most helpful, but even if the official is non-commital, it would be their normal duty to forward your petition letter to the DMV and help obtain an informative response.

If the Licensing Director or staff show interest on the merits, you are on your way!  If not, you may need to recruit support in the form of greater advocacy, expert authority or other  stakeholder interest groups and apply pressure either by further petitioning of the DMV/DOT or additional political figures.

If the DMV/Licensing declines to add or even consider the Reach, then the legislative route may be the only or preferred way to proceed.  A Dutch Reach bill could compell inclusion by the DMV, place it into the highway code in some fashion and even require it become a potential question on the written licensing exam and/or observed for in the road test.

See also:  Add ‘Dutch Reach’ to Your State Driver’s Manual

To: Addressee
State DMV / DOT/ Dept of Public Safety/ Licensing /...

Re: Add Dutch Reach 'dooring' countermeasure to Driver's Manual/Licensing Tests

To the Director of Licensing,

Open vehicle doors are dangerous - at times lethal - for bicyclists.  To increase road sharing safety for bicyclists and other vulnerable road users, I urge you to add the 'Dutch Reach' dooring countermeasure to the next revision of [our state's] Driver’s Manual. 

Doorings are among the most common bike-vehicle collisions in our older, dense cities with rising numbers of bicyclists taking to our streets.* [If you have dooring data or names of victims killed or seriously injured from your major cities, cite it here or as footnote]. Training new drivers and establishing the Reach as [our state's] best practice for safe egress of vehicles will reduce the future toll.

I hope the [DMV/DOT...] is already aware of and already evaluating this best practice. It is already in the driver’s handbooks of Massachusetts, Illinois, Washington and Pennsylvania. The National Safety Council and AAA recommend its use, as does the UK’s Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents.

Full information may be found at the Dutch Reach Project website, www.dutchreach.org and  at ‘Official’s Dutch Reach Instruction Guide: https://www.dutchreach.org/dutch-reach-instructions-2/

The Guide details the multiple safety advantages of the ‘reach’ method compared to the near hand habit. It also contains a gallery of current Dutch Reach advisories of the above states and of road safety entities here and abroad.

Also the Dutch Reach entry in Wikipedia has a well-referenced overview at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dooring#Dutch_Reach

You may be interested to know that [Cite relevant in- or out of state examples, eg: San Francisco MTA for Vision Zero SF, NYC’s Taxi & Limousine Commission, City of Albany’s Police Dept, etc.] have each produced road-sharing videos which teach the ‘reach’, and the Governors Highway Safety Association cites it in its 2017 study A Right to the Road Understanding & Addressing Bicyclist Safety, (p. 58). 

If you find the Dutch Reach a valuable safety measure I hope you will then expedite its inclusion in the manual and promote its adoption by current drivers as well.  

[We/I] would be pleased to respond to any questions you or your staff may have as you consider this suggestion.

Thank you for considering this request. [I/we] look forward to your reply.

Yours truly,

Signed:
You/ Your organization
Address/Phone/Email
Website

* Dooring Statistics:  https://www.dutchreach.org/dooring-problem-prevalence/

Examples of local data, media reports of dooring injuries, deaths

Links:

National Safety Council webpage & video:
https://www.nsc.org/home-safety/tools-resources/seasonal-safety/summer/bicycles/far-hand-reach

NYT:  The Dutch Reach: A No-Tech Way to Save Bicyclists’ Lives:
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/05/smarter-living/the-dutch-reach-save-bicyclists-lives-bicycle-safety-drivers.html

MassDOT Dutch Reach animation
https://youtu.be/AD50tVXIXB4

Albany Police Dept. video:
Sharing The Road (Part 1) - Bicycle Law in New York State  Dooring: @ 2 min 12 sec
https://vimeo.com/227298327

GHSA: A Right to the Road (p.58):
https://www.ghsa.org/sites/default/files/2017-09/2017BicyclistSafetyReport-FINAL.pdf

Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidens:
https://www.rospa.com/road-safety/advice/pedal-cyclists/sharing-the-road-together-drivers-cyclists/dutch-reach/

NY Bicycling Coalition's Dutch Reach video:
https://vimeo.com/310556765

San Francisco MTA / Vision Zero SF video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sC24tCrgbx0#action=share

Links to MA, IL, WA & PA driver manuals' advisories on the Reach may be found on the Project's home page www.dutchreach.org
& in the Officials' Dutch Reach Instruction Guide's gallery:
https://www.dutchreach.org/dutch-reach-instructions-2/

SAMPLE COVER LETTER - v A 7/8/2019 to be customized!!

Dear Senator / State Representative/ Assembly Member

My co-workers and I would like your help asking DMV Licensing to put the Dutch Reach in the driver’s manual asap.

I own a car and a bike here in your district, My biggest fear is getting doored by drivers who don’t check and just throw the door open when getting out. It’s a really common type of collision. And they can be fatal. [Provide examples of media coverage or data supporting seriousness of dooring risk in your major city/cities, etc] It’s really common.

Turns out there’s this amazing fix called the Dutch Reach. You open with your far hand, not your near hand. It makes you turn, look at the mirror and back and keeps you from ambushing someone. You can’t fling it open because you’re reaching across. It’s much safer.

My fellow bike commuters and I also own cars and drive. We all want the Reach in the manual asap. It’s already been added by PA, IL, MA & WA, and the National Safety Council and AAA teach it too.

But we’ve found that [our state’s DMV is like bunker and we have had difficulting getting through to the Licensing Director or staff. We’ve tried the website contact form but it went nowhere.

I’m told though that as my state representative you could pass this letter along and get DMV’s response. If you can please do so. I’m also including links and attachments about the Reach in case they don’t know about it.

But I suspect the DMV already knows but may need ]Governor Name]’s okay, money or a law to make it happen.
I hope you will forward our concerns and request to the DMV, and if you agree it’s a good idea then perhaps you could find out what needs to be done and help make it happen.

Thank you very much. We hope to get good news!

Yours truly,

To:  State / Municipal/ DOT/ Public Safety Officials

re: Doors are Dangerous - The Dutch Reach Countermeasure

Dear  (Official),

(Our organization) wishes to bring to your attention the 'Dutch Reach' -- the far hand method which prevents drivers and passengers from dooring cyclists or endangering themselves when opening to exit.

Simply put:  "Reach,Turn, Look."  That is, reach over to the latch using your hand furthest from the door.  This forces you to swivel, view the side-mirror and out to the side.  Your can then do an easy over-the-shoulder check for oncoming bikes and vehicles, then opening slowly when safe.

It has other advantages as well.  Reaching across impedes sudden, flung-wide door opening.  It works for rear passengers lacking mirrors. When stepping out you naturally and more safely exit facing traffic.  And with practice it becomes a habit -  an automatic best practice.

Last spring, Massachusetts Dept. of Transportation added this best practice to its 2017 Driver's Manual.  MassDOT  promoted the Reach measure with a press release, by video and animation, and with blog and social media posts.   You may view these materials below.  Additional information about the far hand method, its history, endorsements, and the new campaign behind it, can be found at the Dutch Reach Project website, www.dutchreach.org 

We hope (our city/traffic department/DOT)'s own road safety experts will also find the reach habit obviously wise advice worth teaching and promoting.

We would be most pleased to discuss this and other road sharing initiatives with you at your earliest convenience.

Yours truly,

 Dutch Reach Roll-out in Massachusetts -  Links & Attachments:

https://blog.mass.gov/transportation/rmv/rmv-adds-new-bicycle-safety-advice-to-drivers-manual/

Massachusetts Driver's Manual, Revised 4/2017 [4.3 Mb, pdf]. 

Dutch Reach advisory appears (in Chapter 4), here:

The Danger of Open Doors to Bicyclists [p.109 only]

"Dutch Reach - Scan the Streets"  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AD50tVXIXB4

MassDOT partners with the Parents' Supervised Teen Driving Program for Massachusetts which produces annually revised teen teaching curricula.  Their Dec. 2017 revision also added the Dutch Reach but used somewhat different text, viz:

Background on Dutch method:

This far or 'opposite hand' method originated in Europe, most likely the Netherlands, about 5 decades ago. There it never had a name but was simply called 'the way you open a car door.'  It is still taught by driving instructors in Holland s as the best means to pass the strict safe-exit requirement on the Dutch road test. 

The practice spread informally to several nearby nations, but failed to cross oceans or even the English Channel.  In the early 2010s, as bicycling and doorings increased, it was featured in several urban anti-dooring campaigns in the US, Australia and Canada.  In 2016 Massachusetts physician coined the term 'Dutch Reach' and launched a campaign which have gained it recognition by cycling advocates, road safety professionals and the public.

Rationale:

Dooring is a daily hazard wherever cyclists ride adjacent to parked or briefly halted vehicles discharging occupants.  Motorists who adopt this far safer habit reduce that risk.  We believe it should be standard instruction for novice drivers, and campaigns should be mounted to retrain drivers and the general public to adopt the opposite hand habit.

For the root cause of dooring is occupant negligence: failure to look back and sudden wide opening to exit.  The Dutch Reach addresses this dangerous behavior.  It is applicable everywhere, by both drivers and passengers, and protects the exiting individual from harm and their vehicle as well.   

Together with the 'reach', protected bike lanes, side mirrors for rear passengers, bike 'radar' or other alert systems, heightened enforcement and penalties, safe-pass practices, and dooring-defense education for cyclists, all reduce doorings. 

All are needed.  All take time, money and commitment.  But the Dutch fix may be the quickest, easiest and least costly to roll-out. And at the same time, it raises road sharing awareness overall.

[Alternative conclusion]

Below for your consideration are a variety of  MassDOT materials promoting their Dutch Reach anti-dooring initiative. Besides press release, videos, social media and coverage, please note the slide set of a presentation by MassDOT Registrar of Motor Vehicles Erin Deveney featured the Reach at MassDOT's annual transportation conference.

We hope you find this information persuasive and hope we can discuss this and other road sharing behavioral measures to make our roads safer for everyone.

Yours truly,

Executive Director

Organization

    Concurrent Session 3

Session 3G Grand Ballroom A: MEGA SESSION: Health and Safety Campaigns (M)

Advancing quality of life and the health of Massachusetts residents on a statewide level involves collaboration between a variety of agencies and stakeholders. Learn about several current health and safety initiatives including: Scan the Street marketing campaign; Safe Routes to School program; Mass in Motion and Health Impact Assessment Tools; incorporating the Dutch Reach into the RMV Driver’s Manual; and Bike Safety info for J1 Visa students on Cape Cod. The Department of Public Health in collaboration ​​with MassDOT works across these campaigns and others to support a healthier Massachusetts.

Panelists:
Bonnie Polin, MassDOT
Erin Deveney, MassDOT Registry of Motor Vehicles
Halley Reeves, MA Department of Public Health
Nikki Tishler, MassDOTKyle Bonus, MassRIDES

Moderator: Jeff Larason, Executive Office of Public Safety and Security

Bonnie Polin Presentation

Erin Deveney Presentation

Nikki Tishler Presentation

Kyle Bonus Presentation

Halley Reeves Presentation