Should Drivers Be Able to Door Bikers Without Penalty?

Earlier this week the Virginia state Senate passed a bill that protects bicyclists and other drivers from ramming into the open door of a parked car. The bill prevents people from opening car doors on the traffic side of the street "unless and until it is reasonably safe to do so," under penalty of $100 fine. In other words, the legislature thinks that if you swing a car door into traffic and cause an accident, you should be accountable.

Logical enough, right? Not everyone thinks so. William Howell, House Speaker for the state legislature, told the Washington Post in December that this type of law belongs in a file he calls "the stupidest bills." Columnist Kerry Dougherty of The Virginian-Pilot, a Norfolk-based paper, went a step further and labeled the dooring bill an "asinine measure" (via the Post's Northern Virginia blog):