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Motorcycle lane splitting: Better for riders, better for drivers, and safer than sitting in traffic. 

http://www.gizmag.com/motorcycle-lane-splitting-filtering-safety-research/34425/ (http://www.gizmag.com/motorcycle-lane-splitting-filtering-safety-research/34425/)


Nice it is about time that some more data made it's way to the public eye.  This only confirms what I have long known.  The other 49 States can say whatever they want about California but they can say it stuck in traffic until they make some new rules.  I could go on a bit but it might become a politics thread and I hate getting pregnant dog slapped.

Enjoy the article.

ecent research has confirmed what many motorcycle riders have known for years. "Lane splitting" – or riding in between lanes of traffic – obviously saves riders a lot of time, but it's also considerably safer than sitting in traffic and acting like a car, as long as it’s done within certain guidelines, and contrary to what many drivers think, it actually speeds up traffic for everyone else on the road. Riders, please pass this information on to the drivers in your lives.

It’s time for certain drivers to get these thoughts out of their heads: "lane splitting is queue jumping," "motorcyclists should have to wait in line like the rest of us," "riding in between cars is suicidal." While it’s illegal in most of the United States, it’s accepted in many other parts of the world, and evidence is mounting that lane splitting is safer for riders than sitting in traffic, and actually benefits car drivers as well as the riders themselves.
Safety benefits of lane splitting for motorcyclists

One of the key arguments against lane splitting is that, to many driver’s eyes, it seems like a dangerous practice. From a rider’s perspective, this couldn’t be further from the truth.

The most common type of accident on the road is a rear-ender. These make up 40 percent of all accidents in the United States, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. And while most of these are minor fender benders between car drivers, there’s really no such thing as a minor fender bender if someone slams into the back of a motorcycle. By splitting between lanes, riders are able to put a shell of slow or stopped traffic around their bikes and protect against the inattention of other road users.

In a recent Berkeley study undertaken with the California Highway Patrol’s assistance, 7,836 motorcycle crashes were examined closely, with some 1,163 of these crashes having occurred while the rider was lane splitting.

Riders who were splitting at the time of their accident were significantly less likely to be injured in every category than those who weren’t: 45 percent fewer head injuries, 21 percent fewer neck injuries, 32 percent fewer torso injuries, 12 percent fewer arm/leg injuries, and 55 percent fewer fatalities.

This is quite possibly because the majority of those splitting accidents happened at speeds between 1 and 30 mph (50 km/h). The data also shows that the safest way to lane split is to travel at less than 30 mph, and less than 10 mph above the speed of the surrounding traffic. Injury rates leap up in all categories when both of these conditions are violated.
Motorcycle lane filtering: faster and safer for riders, plus it makes the journey quicker ...
Benefits of lane splitting for other road users

Lane splitting is an unspoken contract between riders and drivers. Riders don’t wait for stopped cars, and in return, they don’t make the cars wait for them. Where many drivers get it wrong is that they see lane splitting as "queue jumping" that will cause each car to go one further spot back in the queue. In truth, a filtering bike disappears from the queue altogether, the only time a motorcycle holds a car up is when it sits in traffic and acts like another car.

Filtering bikes work their way to the front of stopped traffic at red lights, and accelerate away much quicker than the cars around them. When they reach the next stoppage, they disappear again between the lanes and no car is held up.

Certainly, this is a good deal for the rider, who arrives much earlier than the car driver. But every filtering rider has a positive effect on traffic flow that benefits every other motorist. A 2012 Belgian study found that if just 10 percent of drivers were to switch to motorcycles and filter through traffic, travel times would decrease for the remaining car drivers by some eight minutes per journey. This benefit would not exist if motorcyclists ignored the inherent advantages of their smaller, narrower vehicles and sat in line like cars.

The same study found considerable environmental benefits to lane splitting. Not because bikes emit less carbon (many larger bikes are as bad as cars), but because every bike that lane splits actively reduces the amount of time every other vehicle on the road spends sitting in traffic jams.

So the next time a rider wriggles past you in traffic, remember that it’s a win-win. The rider is saving time and money, and looking after their own safety, but they’re also making everyone else’s journey faster. So give them some space, for your own sake.

Call it "Lane Sharing" and it sounds harmless.

Names mean everything in policy -- Name a thing and you can win or lose -- "assault weapon" is a classic example.

Collective path redistribution

after all... you didn't build that road.

Ha!  Exactly why I tried to make a case for "Climate Re-Orginization".  ;D

As has been reported on several sites, numerous articles blatantly misrepresented what was actually said in the study. Which is not surprising as the media sucks beyond belief and motorcyclists are generally ever eager for something which sounds legitimate telling them what they want to hear.

http://www.sacbee.com/news/local/transportation/article3210060.ece/binary/California%20Lane%20Splitting%20Crash%20Analysis.pdf (http://www.sacbee.com/news/local/transportation/article3210060.ece/binary/California%20Lane%20Splitting%20Crash%20Analysis.pdf)

First, this study was done by a couple of college students and limited to a very small set of data. Second, the study itself warns against drawing conclusions as the authors admit much of the data they used was incomplete or old. In short, they used canned data from previous works. Third, the study itself makes clear that they had no data on type of motorcycle, age, and a whole bunch of other relevant factors.

But even if you take the study at face value, which is a bad idea, the authors make it clear the the results, such as they are, are mostly based on scenarios where cyclists are lane splitting on California highways when traffic is essentially bumper to bumper and the rider is simply motoring in-between traffic which is barely moving or stopped. As soon as the speed goes up at all, the accident statistics increase dramatically.

As is mentioned, the data on bikes is very limited or nonexistent. However, the study does have some limited data which indicates the typical lane splitter was wearing a full face helmet, was not drinking, and had no passenger. And since this data is from California, this strongly suggests the data set was mostly made up of sport bike riders. Trying to apply the conclusions of this study to the general motorcycle riding population of, say, Alabama is probably nonsensical and dangerous.

So yeah, in a place like LA where traffic is horrendous at least twice a day, lane splitting CAN be beneficial as long as the speeds are very slow, you're riding the right type of bike, and you're wearing full gear. But even then there is significant risk. If you try to filter through faster traffic in the US like they do in some parts of Europe, you're likely to get splattered sooner or later. I lived in Europe for many years and am very familiar with how motorcyclists operate there. Different roads, different onramp layout, different cars, vastly fewer large trucks, and much greater awareness of motorcyclists in general due to the large number of riders on the road. Apples and oranges.

The US is not Holland or Austria. You change the law to allow unrestricted lane splitting throughout the US, and it's almost certain you're going to have hordes of fat guys trying to shoehorn their Harley Ultra with a honey on the back between trucks going 60 MPH on I45 and wondering why they ended up paralyzed since there was a study saying it was supposedly "safe." And then everyone's insurance will probably triple and the politicians will get involved again and come up with a whole bunch more enlightened laws.

Feeling brave? Go head and try that in, say, Dallas and see what happens. Bubba won't even slow down while he's dragging what's left of your very expensive and oh-so-fashionable motorcycle behind his F350 dually.

Seems to me what is being discussed is no more than 10 MPH than traffic going no more than 30 MPH.

I hate this kind of mentality.  I've been lane splitting for years and if it wasn't legal here I probably wouldn't bother to ride at all.

Screw bubba and his p350 fooly.

Exactly. But just to be clear, that's not 10 MPH above the surrounding motorists who are going 30. It's no more than 10 above the other motorists, AND at no point exceeding a maximum of 30. Just for perspective, that's going only slightly faster than in a school zone, most of which are 20. That's what the study was talking about, not lane splitting at highway speeds, which is just suicidal in the US. And even within those limited conditions, one out of seven accidents occurred during lane splitting.

But in my experience, that's NOT what people really want or intend when they discuss making "lane splitting" legal in the US. What they really want is to be able to blast in between cars doing 75 down I-95, all the while telling themselves that this is the proper and safe way to ride. After all, there's a study somewhere that says so, so it must be true.

Motorcyclists tend to be a self-selected group, and not always from among the best or brightest. They want to be able to ride wheelies down Main Street and tear around country roads like they're running the Grand Prix in the Alps, and they tend to get belligerent and juvenile when someone explains to them just how idiotic that is.

If this was just some high density cities discussing options for allowing motorcyclists to filter through bumper to bumper traffic at rush hour, it MIGHT have some merit. Fair enough. But we all know that's not what people want. Hell, you can't even get the average biker to wear a helmet or cover up his wife beater, so I long ago gave up on expecting rational discussion from motorcyclists as a group when it comes to safety issues.

People want what they want.

[laugh]

Riding a motorcycle.  C'mon, it's hardly the height of road safety rationale. 

If motorcycles were invented today..... there's no make the beast with two backsing way............  [laugh]

Zero.

NSW (Australia) has just legalised it, with much the same caveats: no more than 30kph and not past buses or trucks.  It is not clear whether the 30kph is the bike's speed or the traffic's, but I guess it doesn't matter.  I have been doing it for years (don't tell the cops!) and feel safe filtering through stationary traffic and generally keep going a bit when the traffic starts to move.  I doubt I hit 30kph.  Probably the only difference is that, in the past, I have always looked for a spot to draw back into lane at the front of the queue.  Now I feel comfortable to sit between the two frontmost cars and wait for the lights.  So far, I have received (or noticed - same difference) no negative feedback from drivers.

I survived many years of moto-commuting in SoCal.  Lane sharing helped a lot.

Something often overlooked in the safety studies is the ability of a bike to move to the front of a line at an intersection and accelerating ahead of the traffic behind is the hidden bonus.  Not being in the middle of a mass of moving metal behemoths controlled by independent and often deficient operators; is huge when it comes to safety. 

Although it would probably be hard to tell that to the guy whose leg ended up on my girlfriends windshield years ago........ 

Uh, nope. Maybe in TX or FL where there seems to be a higher concentration of these type of riders.


I've split lanes for more then two decades in Southern California. Can't imagine not being able to. And we don't have traffic twice a day in LA. It's all day.

 

No traffic to speak of where I live. When I go to work, I have only one stop sign to get there. make the beast with two backs big cities and all the traffic.

I too would have to ride pretty far to split lanes.

There's more than one? ;D

It's not just all single track and cow paths here.  ;D

While lane splitting/filtering is illegal here, so it's not something I do(also never had a reason), I do think it's a good thing.  Lane sharing on highways I think is a bit crazy though, but that could just be do to the fact I've never experienced it.  Anyway, ran across this video one day while browsing youtube and found it apropos.  Don't trust other drivers.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o0VSBXgXWIU (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o0VSBXgXWIU)

^ that's not the same as good-ol-merican trafic on the 405 lanesplitting. That was a nucklehead passing cars on a two lane road. I realize it didn't help that the dipshit who hit the rider signaled right then swerved left, but given the speed everbody was traveling (in both directions), the rider never should have tried to make a pass there.

Regarding that video,  Stupid place to pass, unrelated to lane sharing.

Also regarding the video:
Having ridden for over 30 years I have learned that quite a few Cagers go wide prior to making a turn.  Gotta expect every car around you to suffer three flat tires while the driver is trying get the cigarette he dropped on his lap, when he was texting, in between bites of a burger.


 

Fair enough on both comments.  I considered it lane sharing as he never actually changes lanes to pass and does it with cars coming in the opposite direction, which I saw a lot in Europe.  The craziest I ever saw was someone do that but a huge lorrie was coming the other direction.  I thought for sure they were going to get clipped or go down, but no.

Can't say I have never passed with oncoming traffic.....  Just not in places that narrow or where I could not be clearly seen by oncoming cars.  Still an asshat stupid move on my part the few times I have done it.

That video is is a good example of one type of lane splitting you'll see 100 times a day if you live in Europe.

As I said earlier, driving in-between cars stopped in a traffic jam is one thing, and that might make sense if American drivers were educated to accept it. But I'm not convinced that's what people want when they talk about legalizing lane splitting.

In America, people already regularly pass on the right and engage in all sorts of other dangerous behavior, and most are clueless that they're even breaking the law. I see other motorcyclists all the time doing incredibly stupid stuff, all the while moaning about how terrible "cagers" are. Legalize lane sharing here and most bikers will see that as a license to ride all over the road in any fashion that suits them. You know they will.

When I lived in Europe this was common behavior and no one batted an eye at bikers "filtering" all over the road however they wanted. But cars are different there, the autobahn is payed out different, drivers education is WAY different, and there are many more bikes on the road. Plus, cars are generally a hell of a lot smaller and easier to get around. Too, trucks are sharply restricted on traveling in the left lanes, which is a huge difference compared to the US.

It's okay that California allows a very limited form of lane splitting. But I'm more than a little skeptical that allowing this in Dallas or Philadelphia will result in anything but more accidents and an even worse attitude toward motorcyclists in general.

I wouldn't consider lane splitting in CA to be limited in any fashion that is meaningful.  Much less so than travel speed...

and I would consider the video to be illegal/unsafe passing, not lane splitting.

The argument about driver education is a good one, but mostly moot.  Auto accidents (probably quite a few of them related to unsafe or under-skilled drivers) kill nearly as many people a month as the 9/11 attack...

Well, it might be relevant, even though it's one of many potential factors.

The accident rate in Germany is 4.3 per 100, whereas in the US it's 11.2. Nearly three times as high. Also, motorcyclists account for an average of 23% of all road fatalities.

Accident rates on the autobahn are significantly less than US highways, and the stringent driver education programs there probably account for a good piece of that equation since young drivers make up a disproportionate percentage of fatalities. In Germany, drivers education is not optional and it's not easy. Compared to America, where a lot of teen boys learn to drive in big daddy bubba's pickup truck, the emphasis on vehicular safety education in Germany is light years ahead.

One interesting tidbit regarding the autobahn is the philosophy of entrance and exit ramps. Studies consistently show the vast majority of accidents on highways occur at entrance/exit ramps. Knowing that, the Germans have purposely designed the autobahn with far fewer entrance/exit ramps than US highways. Our highways are designed for maximum convenience, and as a result Americans use highways for quick jaunts across town. In Germany (and most of Europe), highways are designed to travel long distances, thus they are laid out in a way that makes it difficult to use them for anything else. A big city might only have two or three exits from a particular highway, meaning if you miss yours, then you're going to be traveling to the next town whether you want to or not.  That means motorcycles can get on the autobahn and cook along at very high speed and still maintain a high level of safety, whereas in the US the constant stream of people getting on and off and crossing lanes creates a churning effect that's lethal. When combined with much larger cars, a preponderance of big SUV's, and generally larger, heavier, and less maneuverable bikes, and it's easy to see why US roads are so much more dangerous for motorcyclists. Add to that the whole anti-helmet attitude (which European bikers usually find bizarre and puzzling), and it's apples and oranges when comparing US laws to those in Europe.

Lane splitting works in Europe but I'm skeptical it will work in most US cities.

Driver education in the USA is geared to produce revenue.

[clap]  well said and sooooo true

Sadly, that's more or less true. Drivers ed in the US is a joke compared to Europe. I've taken the German version and it's WAY more involved than that typically found here. Also, the vast majority of countries around the world do not permit driving until the age of 18 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_minimum_driving_age). Even in permissive Germany, people are unable get a learners permit until the age of 17, and must be accompanied by the parent until the age of 18. Even then, there are all sorts of restrictions on motorcycle type for a number of years.

In the US, some states allow driving as early as 14, there are no restrictions whatsoever on motorcycles, and even those states which formerly had helmet laws are now repealing them. Also, even though drinking alcohol is allowed and part of the culture in at much earlier age in Europe, they will absolutely stomp you if you get busted for DUI, and the legal limit is WAY lower. In Sweden, 0.02% is the limit, and just like in most of Europe your lose your license on the first offense. In Italy officials have the option to sell your car if you get a DUI! In Germany the limit is 0.05%. However, for the first few years the limit is zero for beginning drivers (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drunk_driving_law_by_country). That's right, if you have any alcohol in your system at all it's automatic loss of license for three years. In sharp contrast to Europe, the limit is the US is 0.08%, and a lot of people have three or more DUI's. It's crazy.

Why do I mention all that? Well, in part because when people talk about legalizing lane splitting in the US, they often point to Europe as an example of how it can work. And that's fair enough. Just so long as you're also willing to import all the other stuff that goes with it.

I would be willing to import all of that.  How Americans (as a society) drive is shit.  Training is shit as well.  Wait, there is no "training" just operation teaching.  Any monkey can operate a vehicle, how many can actually drive it?

I once took an 8-6 driving course.  Something Malibu County used to do.  An eight hour classroom like the regular traffic schools and a six hour class.  The six hour class was with Sheriffs deputies in cars and included things like avoidance maneuvers, emergency braking, reaction timing and most importantly the math of speeding.  Best damn class I ever took in relation to real world driving.

I stopped following people to closely and stopped speeding on anything but long road trips and canyon rides a long time ago.

Americans need to learn that the freeway is not a Nascar track and they are not losing a position every time someone passes them.  Don't even get me started about our more than apparent inability to make the beast with two backsing merge.  

I think you're right on, Skybarney. The only thing I would add is that motorcyclists in the US are every bit as bad or even worse. If drivers think the highway is a NASCAR track, then most riders appear to think it's the X-Games. Seriously. I got passed on I-45 heading into a big construction zone by a dude on a street bike riding a continuous wheelie doing probably 85 MPH. He kept riding that way until I finally lost sight of him.

Stuff like that is exactly why so many motorists believe motorcyclists deserve whatever they get.

  The rager stunter gang is quickly becoming a phenomenon that is gaining traction in the big cities. Luckily the squids that pull that crap are pretty rare in my neck of the woods.  Up here most motorists move to the right side of the lane on the mountain roads so we can get around them without passing a double yellow. 

Italian drivers are much worse than here in the U.S.!  I don’t know about the rest of Europe.

If the entire US decided to legalize lanesplitting everything would be fine. It's worked fine here in CA for as long as we have had motorcycles and it would work fine everywhere else. There will always be assholes that ride like assholes and assholes driving cars. The asshole riders get taken out by national selection and the asshole drivers get boots taking off their mirrors. And so it goes and so it will continue to.

How much lanesplitting have you done in CA? How much driving have you done in CA? Riders rarely split lanes on the exit side of a freeway. If they do it's normally as they are making their way over to the fast lane to split there.

I have never, in my entire life of traveling California freeways, witnessed a lanesplitting accident, I have never been in a lanesplitting accident, and in 11 years of law enforcement never responded to or heard of a call regarding a lanesplitting accident. I'm sure they occur here and there but not to the level that would cause the hesteria you are trying to claim would  transpire.

Sheesh....ride on. [Dolph]

That'll never happen.

 Not with people like DM 426 around!

I think it's wonderful that individual states can do it however they want. It works for California and that's great.

how broad is that brush you're painting with?

+1

I have far less experience but this mirrors mine

Having lived in Socal I know of two.  One I saw first hand the other happened to my girlfriend.

1.  Rider splitting was bowled over the cars hood in the lane next to me and slightly in front.  Rider did a somersault over the guys hood landed on his feet and the only damage was the bike.
2.  Rider going like an asshat between cars got squeezed by a truck and his freshly amputated leg landed on my girls windshield and hood.
 Despite those two incidents in 15 years of riding full time down there I back up the stance that done properly it is safer than being in the flow.

They are infrequent as hell in SoCal as everyone is aware of bikes.  Here in Nor-Cal I get a bit of the willies splitting lanes as the drivers up here do not see as many bikes on the road during the weekdays.

From an outside view  [coffee]

Europe, as a whole, has fewer fatal bike accidents than the US - still major differences from country to country. Quite a few countries started upgrading the educational programs and biker organisations worked with attitude issues from the 1980s + and the results have been great. Norway has had a reduction of deaths/biker of 90% since the '80s. Also, the probability of death is reduced by 90% from age 25 to 40 (experience and/or attitude). The next step forward is reducing the time/miles it takes from unexperienced to experienced rider - bridging the gap.

The fatal accident rate is roughly 10 times higher in the US compared to Norway. Many reasons why, but my understanding is that education, attitude, protective gear... plus infrastructure and other roadusers are important factors. All those factors are, more or less, killing people who didn't need to be dead.

US traffic has a long way to go and I hope the work starts soon. 10 times the fatality rate and some people still don't want to wear helmets - amazing!

It takes a certain amount of skill and awareness to lane share safely and not all riders should do it. To me though, the biggest risk of lane sharing is unattentive drivers - a problem that IMO would be reduced if riders were 'there' all the time.

Ride safely  [thumbsup]

I've driven in Italy -- and over much of western and eastern Europe, all the way south to Turkey and I found drivers to be more "assertive" esp in southern Europe, but more "skilled."

The problem in the USA is that drivers are often both "assertive" and unskilled.

Amen to that.

+1

Few things scarier than being passed by people you know have not taken the same kinds of driving schools I have taken..... 

On the other hand I was incredibly impressed when driving around Switzerland and France.  When a highway reduced lanes the traffic would barely slow down.  People would see the sign, spread out a bit and roll on along. 

Here in The States we get drivers that will use exit lanes to jam ahead of backups and cut back in line when they end.  Not to mention when a lane reduction happens it causes a backup as people all think it's Nascar and they are gonna lose a position.  Drives me insane.

Exactly. Until the issue of craptastic drivers and idiotic riders is properly addressed, and we start seeing skill levels go up and fatalities go down, I don 't see the point of making traffic laws even more permissive.


That's a prime example of what I was talking about earlier when I said European riders find the attitude of American riders puzzling and bizarre. And the Europeans are right to feel that way because we DO have tons of motorcyclists here who are just this side of suicidal.

I think it's also a mentality thing.  In the US drivers tend to view driving as a necessary chore rather than something they enjoy.  People in the US are also often in a large rush to their next destination which could be somewhat spawned from the point that especially now with our high unemployment rate people feel that if they're not hurrying and getting things done fast they could get booted to the street.

The thought of lanesplitting makes me wee myself a little. Of course, that is thru the filter on my living here in the Northwest. As others have said, car drivers can be a-holes (yes, I've had my days, too). It would take a while for drivers here to get used to the idea that a bike was allowed to ride the line in congested traffic, and I fear that the time before they are educated would include drivers "wandering the lane" to prevent a bike from proceeding... "why does HE get to go?"

Over time, it could work as well as it appears to in SoCal... and I'm sure I'd try it on occasion... but I may still wee myself a little.

I recently read a very similar discussion on another forum about the same issue, and it was interesting to hear form the Australian members as they've just passed some new laws there.

As I understand it (and any Aussies here are welcome to correct me if I have it wrong), the new laws have clarified the issue by dividing this into two basic types: lane splitting and filtering.

Filtering is defined as motorcyclists using the available space to go in-between and around cars when traffic is really backed up or hardly moving. Filtering is now legal in most places there, but you're limited to 30 KPH and no more than 10 KPH over the surrounding traffic. In other words, filtering is intended as a means to allow motorcycles to work their way through and out of heavy traffic, thus helping reduce overall congestion and (hopefully) increasing safety.

They define lane splitting as motorcyclists using the available space to pass cars by going in-between them at normal highway speeds. This is not legal.

There appears to be a great deal of confusion on the Internet and among motorcyclists in general on this issue, with "lane splitting" being used as a generic term to refer to both of these types of riding. Filtering is a term I commonly heard used to differentiate between the two when I lived in Europe, but it seems in the US everyone just says lane splitting. If we're not going to make a distinction between the two practices (and we really should), then that goes a long way toward explaining why there is an entrenched opposition (even among motorcyclists) in the US to "lane splitting."

I believe filtering could be legit and safe, or least there is the potential that it could be once people adjusted to it. But actual lane splitting at highway speeds like I saw all the time in Europe...no way. That's just insane.

Here's some examples of what I'm talking about. The first video of "lane splitting" is really filtering through heavy traffic in California. Pretty straightforward and arguably safer than being stuck in traffic. Fair enough. The second video shows some real filtering through heavy traffic, but it also shows a bunch of cases where the rider completely ignores any and all traffic laws to pretty much just drive all over the road like it's his private estate. This guy is a clown that simply doesn't want to wait his turn for anything. The third video is a classic case of blatantly illegal and unsafe lane splitting.

The point is, there are different types of filtering and lane splitting. So I take it with a grain of salt when I hear people say, "Oh lane splitting is safe. There's a study that says so." Right. There are TONS of people out there who already ride exactly like this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c2WgLYenN2A (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c2WgLYenN2A)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v306ZJrAT1I (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v306ZJrAT1I)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tHAI3ca2X8k (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tHAI3ca2X8k)

Very well written response and I am in full agreement!

Big difference between the two and it could only help legislation to differentiate between the two. 

I lane split on my commute in to work this morning.  Traffic on the 15 freeway was slow but never completely stopped and when it sped up to around 40 or above I just slotted in to become another vehicle in my lane.  When traffic slows I just take to the middle and "filter" as you say.  When I get to the HOV lanes I ride along at the speed of the vehicles around me (HOV lanes on the 15 in San Diego usually move along pretty well, even during rush hour).  Exits and stop lights are another place where I always filter to the front.  Only time I don't do this is on single lane roads or when there are only one or two vehicles ahead of me.

That is pretty much the way I always did it. If there was a line of cars stopped for construction on two lane blacktop, I would usually go to the front as well.

Defined like that (more or less "filtering"), I would probably support laws similar to what they just enacted in Australia as long as there are similar limitations. But I can't see ever supporting legalizing lane splitting at highways speeds, like shown in the third video above. I hate to sound like a curmudgeon, but like most of you I also own and operate a vehicle of the four-wheeled variety. And I don't want to have to look out for motorcyclists trying pass between me the car in the adjacent lane at 75 MPH.

I really hope the guys in that video have matured a bit and have an opportunity to become more responsible riders.

I doubt anyone in this thread would support lane splitting at 75 MPH. 

I fully support it!  Just a couple of conditions:

1.  Must only be done without a helmet.
2.  Must only be done prior to breeding. 

Maybe if we let the stupid people kill themselves before they have kids the world would be a better place.   ;D

Those people caught doing that sort of thing should be sent to the Soylent Green factory.

Ghost Rider approves.


http://youtu.be/YTdStgg0x8w (http://youtu.be/YTdStgg0x8w)

Well, here's one. A soon-to-be statistic.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i_tGOOE4N3k (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i_tGOOE4N3k)

On a semi-related note, that video would actually put me off wanting a 1200S.


You can't fix stupid.

most motorcycles lane share every day without incident and without looking like most of those videos.

but I suppose you don't get a lot of clicks riding reasonably.

 ???

I was clipped a few months ago while lane splitting and I still do it... motorcycling is dangerous, but I'd still rather lane split than sit in stop and go gridlock.

Rode to work yesterday because I knew traffic would be horrific and I could beat right through it on my way home and it was horrific.  One less cage.  Cagers should just thank us really.