A while back, a former teammate of ours got into a minor accident: He was exiting the vehicle on the side of the sidewalk when a motorcycle rider straight-up ran into the car’s door. Our ex-colleague wasn’t hurt, but the rider ended up with some slight bruises.
I’m not just trying to defend my teammate here, but the motorcycle rider was clearly at fault because he was already riding along the gutter. It doesn’t matter if the alighting passenger looked at the side mirror before exiting or not—the path should’ve been clear to start with.
This incident—which apparently is referred to as ‘dooring’—is a pretty common one. It involves not just riders but also cyclists, pedestrians, and pretty much all other road users, too. And it’s a common incident that Ford now wishes to eliminate with its new Exit Warning feature.
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Exit Warning makes use of radars and external sensors to determine when an opening door might hit an oncoming road user. There’s a flashing LED indicator on the side mirror as well as audiovisual alerts through the instrument cluster to warn both the passenger and said road user.
The feature also works for the passenger side of the vehicle. But seeing as Ford has only introduced this tech in the Transit Custom to cater mainly to delivery drivers, the tech only works in the front row. Perhaps in the future, second-row passengers can enjoy the same safety feature, too.
We reckon this Exit Warning feature should eventually make its way to markets like ours as well. As the cycling population grows, so does the number of dooring incidents like the one our former colleague experienced. We’re sure it’ll be very, very useful. Anyway, you can see how it works through the short clip below.
