Why it Should be Legal to Split Lanes, According to /DRIVE
Here on the Forum, members talk a lot about legal issues, from loud pipes, to licensing, to helmet laws. But one of the things I don’t see a lot of conversation about? Splitting lanes. And the reason for that is the only state in the union where it’s legal to drive a motorcycle between cars is the great state of California. Everywhere else, it’ll result in a reckless riding ticket—or worse.
Over the past year, I’ve had the opportunity to travel all over the world, from Japan, to Europe, to Mexico to Canada, and with the exception of the Great White North, lane splitting was legal in all of those places. Now, I’ll admit, when I first moved to the Golden State and I’d be driving my truck on the freeway, I was initially pretty freaked out when riders would blow by me. I learned to ride in Florida and logged the most miles up in Washington state, so I’d never experienced sharing the roads like that before.
And while I think it should be legal to do everywhere, I think there are some pretty big barriers to making it legal. The first one? Even if it’s a great way to reduce congestion, and a way to protect riders from being rear-ended, most drivers are going to think it’s dangerous. In a lot of places, I can see any push to open up the roads as akin to asking voters if we should allow smoking in grade schools. And the second one involves driver education. I don’t see where the money would comes from to alert drivers to pay attention to motorcyclists splitting lanes, given that a lot of drivers think it’s cheating. The guys at DRIVE just put together a cool video about why it should be legal everywhere, and I think they make some good points.
But what do you think? Let me know in the Forums! >>
