Can’t touch this

Monday, Feb. 18, 2008 | 2:06 a.m.

Are you a door-bumper? A paper towel handle-grabber? A pinkie-puller?

In other words, are you among the millions of Americans who will do almost anything to avoid touching a presumably germ-laden public bathroom door?

It is hard to fault those who are. A study released last summer by the Soap and Detergent Association and the American Society for Microbiology found that 34 percent of men and 12 percent of women observed in public bathrooms failed to wash their hands before heading out the door — the door that we all must touch in order to leave the bathroom.

Eeew.

And a front-page story in The Wall Street Journal on Friday reports that the increasing number of hand-sanitizing, Purell-packing germaphobes are fueling a quest to manufacture a sensible and affordable way to protect those who wash from the unwashed masses.

One company hawks a door equipped with an L-shaped handle that’s open at the top and can be pulled with the forearm or wrist. A North Carolina restaurant chain has installed sensors that open the door automatically. Other establishments have installed latches that can be pulled with a foot, The Wall Street Journal reports.

And a Massachusetts lawmaker has introduced legislation that would require all public bathroom doors to open outward, which would allow people to open them with a bump of the bum or the shoulder. Simon Sassoon, son of Vidal, has invented a contraption that sprays the door handle with disinfectant at regular intervals.

Still, washing our hands regularly is a good idea, no matter how we manage to get out of the bathroom. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says the best way to contain infections is to wash hands for at least 20 seconds with good old soap and water.

With any luck, the faucet will be one we can shut off with an elbow — just in case the last person didn’t use soap.