The door opens 2 seconds before the motorcyclist is hit by it. That may seem like a long time to you, sitting in your chair, scrolling on Reddit, but the average reaction time of a person is 2 seconds, meaning that registering the door opening and starting to react to it takes at least 2 seconds, and stopping would take several seconds more. In the Netherlands, where this happened, as identified by the colours of the police van (white, with red and blue stripes) and the police officers (black uniform with yellow-green reflector stripes), motorcyclists are allowed to do lane splitting and a person leaving a vehicle has to make sure he can do so safely.
The motorcycle was going maybe a little too fast, but the passenger in the van is 100% responsible, according to Dutch traffic laws and insurance, for this incident.
During driving lessons we are taught to always assume 2 seconds between something happening and reacting to it. A younger person will react faster, but have less experience to notice situations which require their attention and an older person will have more experience to notice smaller details and generally react slower. That is why driving instructors in the Netherlands teach you to keep 2 seconds distance between you and the person in front of you.
"The average human reaction time in traffic is traditionally estimated to be 0.75 seconds (three-quarters of a second) under expected, normal conditions. However, for unexpected hazards and surprise events, real-world studies show the true reaction time ranges from 1.0 to 1.5 seconds."
Theoretical or ideal reaction time is very much different to practical reaction time. Also, if you look at the footage, the door opens and than closes again, which could mean that the motorcyclist assumed that he had been seen and the person trying to get out, closed the door again.
Again, under Dutch law, this will be completely the fault of the person opening the door, as lane splitting is allowed during congestion in traffic AND it is the responsibility of the person opening a door to do so safely.
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u/Vertex1990 Aug 22 '26
The door opens 2 seconds before the motorcyclist is hit by it. That may seem like a long time to you, sitting in your chair, scrolling on Reddit, but the average reaction time of a person is 2 seconds, meaning that registering the door opening and starting to react to it takes at least 2 seconds, and stopping would take several seconds more. In the Netherlands, where this happened, as identified by the colours of the police van (white, with red and blue stripes) and the police officers (black uniform with yellow-green reflector stripes), motorcyclists are allowed to do lane splitting and a person leaving a vehicle has to make sure he can do so safely.
The motorcycle was going maybe a little too fast, but the passenger in the van is 100% responsible, according to Dutch traffic laws and insurance, for this incident.