the Dutch reach noun phrase

- a car-door opening technique in which the driver or passenger uses the hand furthest from the door — the right hand for a driver in a left-hand-drive country, the left hand for a front-seat passenger — to reach across the body and release the door latch; the resulting rotation of the upper body and head naturally brings the side mirror and the approaching traffic lane into the line of sight, reducing the risk of a "dooring" accident with a passing cyclist, motorcyclist, or pedestrian.

- (road safety) the recommended method of exiting a parked vehicle as set out in the UK Highway Code, several US state driver's manuals, and driving instruction programmes in the Netherlands, where the practice has been standard since at least the 1970s.

Highway Code (UK, Rule 239); Dutch Reach Project (dutchreach.org)

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WORD ORIGIN

In 2016, a retired doctor named Michael Charney, a cyclist in Cambridge, Massachusetts, read about a young woman killed when a car door swung open in her path. He began looking into the problem — dooring, as it is known — and discovered that drivers in the Netherlands had long used a far-hand habit their driving instructors had quietly passed down for generations, apparently without ever making a fuss about it.

Charney coined the term "Dutch reach," encouraged local police to post it on electronic road signs, and within a fortnight a Boston Globe reporter had noticed, a cycling video had three million views, and the BBC had called. The idea had been practised across the Netherlands for fifty years. It took an American in Massachusetts with a good name for it to make it travel.

By 2017, the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents had endorsed it. By 2022, it was in the UK Highway Code. Several US states have since written it into their driver's manuals. The Dutch, for their part, are reportedly slightly puzzled that this is considered remarkable.

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SYNONYMS

cross-hand exit technique, door-opening safety method, far-hand door opening, far-hand exit technique, THE DUTCH REACH, the Dutch far-hand habit, the reach-across technique, the safe-exit technique, the shoulder-check door method

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SMUGGLE OWAD into a conversation today, say something like:

"The DUTCH REACH should be a universal requirement in all countries' driving tests."

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