A Toronto web developer is building an online database for cyclists to record when they are hit by car doors, a widely feared accident police stopped tracking last year.

Justin Bull, who said the site would be up and running in about two weeks, hopes the project will draw attention to the crashes and maybe “galvanize” police to keep track of the collisions.

The site will allow cyclists to post information about being “doored” — when an oncoming bike hits an abruptly opened car door. Users will be required to include when and where the collision happened, as well as a description of the incident. They will also have the option to upload photos and video of the crash.

Eventually, Bull plans to make an interactive map of dooring hot spots using the database.

He has already purchased the domain name “doored.ca” to host the site. “It seems easy to remember,” he said.

Police stopped keeping statistics on the accidents last year after the provincial definition of a “collision” changed to exclude the opening of a car door. Between 2007 and 2011, an average of 144 such incidents were reported annually in Toronto.

The chair of the Toronto Police Services Board recently asked the force to start tracking dooring again, but police said they will wait until they’re ordered to do so, which may not be for months.

Bull said he hopes police can make use of his site, drawing on first-hand accounts from cyclists to supplement official figures on dooring collisions, which often go unreported.

Police spokeswoman Meaghan Gray wouldn’t commit to using the site, saying she didn’t want to “speculate on something that doesn’t exist right now.” But she left open the possibility of using the data in a “public awareness campaign” about dooring.

Councillor Adam Vaughan said he asked the force’s cycling unit to build a similar database last year, but nothing came of it. Police say they are not aware of the request.

Databases like Bull’s have their critics. Without police involvement, open-sourced websites could allow people to make up lurid war stories about “getting the door prize,” said Cycle Toronto executive director Jared Kolb.

“If it’s me reporting it alone online, there are no witnesses,” he said.

Bull said there’s nothing he can do about online fabulists.

“That’s the unfortunate thing — with any crowdsourced database, people can submit fraudulent information,” he said. “That’s just one of the risks.”

But so far, the web has been a nurturing place for Bull’s project.

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Inspiration and money for the site have poured in from social media. The city’s online cycling community, which congregates around the hashtag #BikeTO, encouraged the self-described “nerd” to launch the database after he floated the idea this week.

Since then, through a link on the site’s mostly dormant home page, sympathetic netizens have donated about $150 for server costs.