Top Down Raycast

Hi, me and my friend want to do a little top-down 2D game and are currently stuck at Raycast. We would like to add a dash ability, but you need a raycast to check whether there is an object in front of the player or not. I wrote a few lines of code and tested the game, and I noticed that the Raycast behaved very strangely and erratically. It would be nice if someone could help us to produce a raycast that is always done in front of the player.

My code looks like this:

 // Update is called once per frame
 void Update()
 {
     Ray2D ray = new Ray2D();

     //beginning of the ray 
     ray.origin = transform.position;

     //direction of the ray
     ray.direction = transform.up;

     RaycastHit2D hit = Physics2D.Raycast(ray.origin, ray.direction, shootingRange, 1 << 8);

     Debug.DrawLine(ray.origin, ray.direction * shootingRange, Color.red);

     if (hit.collider != null)
         Debug.Log(hit.collider.tag);

 }

}

(I also added layers but I doesnt seem to work)