dooring

While the Chicago Police Department issued no citation to the driver who doored Bridgid Mullen on Southport Avenue in April, 2010, she will be compensated for her injuries. Mullen has now received an $800,000 settlement from the driver's insurance company, reports the Lincoln Park Patch.

The "Look Chicago" community group will conduct its first outreach to prevent dooring crashes on Saturday, March 2, in the Wicker Park neighborhood. The Look Chicago street team will meet at 11 a.m. at Milwaukee and Damen to distribute informational flyers to pedestrians, cyclists, and drivers, proceeding to the site where cyclist Dustin Valenta was doored by a parked motorist, then seriously injured by a hit-and-run truck driver.

Amazingly, Dustin Valenta, doored then run over by a driver who fled the scene on February 8, resulting in a cracked skull and vertebrae, broken shoulder blades and pelvis, 23 fractured ribs and a punctured lung, is giving interviews and even walking a bit. Valenta, 27, a delivery biker with Cut Cats Courier, yoga teacher and actor, was commuting north on Milwaukee Avenue in Wicker Park when a motorist opened her door in his path in front of Artemio’s Bakery, 1443 North Milwaukee. Valenta was thrown off his bike into the street, then struck by the second vehicle.

The horrific crash that bicyclist Dustin Valenta, 27, miraculously survived was a perfect storm of factors that are all too common when Chicago cyclists are injured or killed. Not only was Valenta knocked off his bike into traffic when a driver opened her door, he was struck by a second motorist who then fled the scene.