LH4X4,

I have shared lanes right behind and in front of CHP Motorcycle Officers. I occasionally even get a wave from them once in a while.

Thanks for your service on the thin blue line! Not many are willing or able.

 

There aren't many places that I know of in the states that have the amount of stop and go traffic that the freeways in the major cities in California have.

I live in Arizona and ride to California fairly often, when I'm in heavy traffic there I split lanes. It's not technically legal, but it's not technically illegal either.

A couple of years ago, the Arizona House and Senate voted to allow lane splitting in counties with population over 1,000,000 people - which would have limited it to Maricopa County, or the Phoenix area. The Governor vetoed the bill. I was hoping it would pass because on a bike there's not many things more miserable than sitting in stop and go traffic on the freeway with an ambient temperature of 115 degrees.

Even if the bill had passed, I would have been very careful where I chose to lane split for the first year until the drivers got used to it.

 

A SINGLE long line of cars ?

That's not lane-splitting. That's illegal.

Lane-splitting is riding on the roadway ( not on the shoulder or over the lines marking the shoulders ) BETWEEN TWO LANES of traffic. If it was a single line of cars, it wasn't lane-splitting.

 

What an asinine statement. I don't know any PO that would say something like that--except the A-Hole traffic pukes that lived for things like deuce watch and towing bikes for modified exhaust. You know, that kind that get all giggly at the thought of 4 hours of OT on the federal dime, or "punking" a biker for going 3 over... Just my .02

 

Bingo.

 

Interesting.

My buddy moved to Phoenix from California. He got stuck in traffic on the freeway and wasn't sure if he should split lanes or not.

He got rear-ended, knocked off his bike, fellinto the adjacent lane, where a car ran over both of his legs. He's had several surgeries, and can now walk with a cane. He will have more surgeries.

He wishes he'd split lanes.

He might have a traffic ticket (some cops are dicks), but he'd be walking. What'smore important ? Your health and your ability to work and support your family, or some ******* cop's power trip ?

I hope you guys get your lane-splitting law passed. I'm sure my buddy does too. His injuries from getting needlessly rear-ended were much worse than mine. It's the biggest reason I'm so adamant on the safety reasoning of lane-splitting. Nobody should be able to come up with a better reason to NOT split, as far as I'm concerned, when I think of my buddy.

I mean, it's almost the same as choosing to play Russian Roulette with three bullets instead of one, because you're three times more likely to get in an accident by being rear-ended in stop-and-go traffic than you are to get hit lane-splitting.

I've had close calls lane-splitting. And I've been put in the hospital when I didn't. My buddy can barely walk because HE didn't lane-split. It's that simple.

 

I'm not picking on you individually, because I have seen statements similar to this throughout the thread. I just think that there is a misunderstanding about how our laws are written.

In general, our laws don't tell us what is legal, but what is illegal. So lane-splitting, filtering, and lane-sharing is legal in California simply because there is no law forbidding it. As far as I know, all the other states have laws with language that forbid these practices.

For instance, I don't believe that there is a law that legalizes someone breathing, but there is a law that prohibits others from stopping them from breathing (i.e. murder). Another example would be that there is no law that legalizes using the brakes on your bike, but there are laws that specify when it is illegal to use them (i.e. to purposefully cause an accident).

 

There is a ticket given for slowing traffic down for changing too many lane that's impeding traffic flow or you deliberately run into a vehicle or run them off the road.
The ticket is reckless driving

 

I can't believe how many fellow bikers here are against lane-splitting! But of course, it's always you guys from states other than Cali who have never done it or even seen it done except on youtube. I lived in Cali for 3 years and enjoyed every opportunity I had to not sit in hours of stop and go traffic on an air cooled bike. Now that I live in TX where it's even hotter AND have ridiculous Austin traffic to deal with, I curse every day that I'm not allowed to filter to the front at every light. I wonder if those who are against it realize that countries all over the world allow it and many studies have been done to show that it does NOT increase motorcycle fatalities.

It's not fair? Wait your turn?? Really? Grow up. It has nothing to do with who's time is more valuable, it's about the fact that bikes can easily fit between cars, essentially adding additional lanes for traffic to move in parallel. It makes roadways more efficient. Besides, anyone who drives a cage could choose to buy a bike and lane split as well...so it's totally fair.

It seems there's never a shortage of idiots who will vote against something that they know nothing about. YOU don't wanna lane split? Then don't. But don't screw the rest of us over because of your ignorance or selfishness.

 

I really have no desire to insert myself between 2 cars in such close proximity when both of them are most likely texting while driving. If you guys want to do it be my guest but it's not for me.