Have You Heard of ‘Dutch Reach’? On Collision and Derision in Language

via GIPHY

I learned about the Dutch reach, a safety measure to avoid opening your car door into passing bicyclists, the same morning my husband received a Munich apology from a cyclist he accidentally swerved into with his own bike as she was passing him on the right. She seemed to accept that she might have rung her bell or otherwise indicated her intentions, then said, “Well, no one got hurt.” And drove off.

A Munich apology is a term of my own making. It’s the sort of phrase I imagine expa...