(08-20-2015, 10:37 PM)EmptySea_imp Wrote: Without taking a position on the issue, lane splitting does NOT reduce congestion for anyone other than the lane splitter.

Now, to take a position on the issue... Lane dividers are there for dividing the lanes. Shocking, I know, but they really are. Riding between lanes gets the rider going where he wants to go faster, but faster is not the goal. Orderly movement is the goal. To the extent that the government can increase the speed of that movement while maintaining order, they will do so. Allowing some vehicles to behave differently than others creates disorder and risk. Sometimes government feels that the benefits of allowing some vehicles special consideration outweighs the risk--buses allowed to ride on the shoulder and trucks having different speed limits are examples. However, lane splitting is (or would be) the only such exception that would effectively allow two vehicles to occupy the same lane at the same time (although bikes are allowed to pair up at traffic signals). I am not convinced that the benefit to riders of riding in another vehicle's lane is an acceptable break in the orderly move,net of vehicles on the highway.

About now, someone is saying to themselves (probably aloud) "No one is saying that bikes should be allowed to ride in a car's lane...we want to SPLIT lanes". Except that you are only "splitting" lanes if your bike is on the lane marker with no part of the bike or rider in or hanging over the lanes on either side. Otherwise you are, by definition, riding in one or the other of the adjacent lanes. "But, that's just a technicality; we are only just barely coming into the adjacent lanes and there's plenty of extra room there." That is true, but it is also true that a driver of a car or truck could make the exact same argument for entering a biker's lane to, for example, move around a bicyclist or a stopped police vehicle. If we're ok with a minor violation of the car's lane, then we need to be ok with the car violating our lanes. I'm not ok with the latter so I don't support the former.

As the late great Patrick Swayze said "This is MY dance space..."

(08-24-2015, 01:31 AM)Toddman_imp Wrote: I live in OK where "lane splitting" isn't supposed to be legal. If the traffic is stopped on the freeway, I'm going to slowly proceed between the cars and it infuriates drivers. I've had them turn into me and act as if they are going to open the door. Life in the fast lane I suppose...

Ride at your own risk and ride as if you're invisible.

(08-19-2015, 02:18 AM)cbdtran_imp Wrote:

(08-19-2015, 01:45 AM)RetroSeattle_imp Wrote: Washington State recently enacted legislation that was supposed to allow lane splitting, but at the last minute it was re-written by a non-motorcyclist into something ridiculous and unsafe -

"The operator of a motorcycle shall not overtake and pass in the same lane occupied by the vehicle being overtaken, except on the left-hand side of a vehicle traveling in the left-most lane of traffic on a numbered state highway identified in chapter 47.17 RCW that has two or more lanes of traffic in each direction if the operator of the motorcycle is traveling at a rate of speed no more than ten miles per hour over the speed of traffic flow and not more than twenty-five miles per hour."

By the way, I've spent a lot of time on California highways, and it's my observation that 75% of riders lane split in an idiotic and unsafe manner. I'm always pleasantly surprised when I see someone doing it right. Several times I've been "dive bombed" by some idiot with open pipes screaming by at 90 MPH and it can be a frightening experience.

I lived in Spain for several years and found that lane splitting is a way of life. The car drivers even spread out to make way when they see you in the mirrors! My commute to work in a car was 40 minutes, lane splitting cut it down to 15 minutes on my BMW R1150R.

there is nothing more frightening than sitting in your car and a very loud motorcycle screams by at more than 30 MPH than traffic. As a driver I never like lane splitting so as rider I never lane split. It is a matter of choice, I treat my bike like a car and ride as such

(08-24-2015, 01:31 AM)Toddman_imp Wrote: I live in OK where "lane splitting" isn't supposed to be legal. If the traffic is stopped on the freeway, I'm going to slowly proceed between the cars and it infuriates drivers. I've had them turn into me and act as if they are going to open the door. Life in the fast lane I suppose...

Ride at your own risk and ride as if you're invisible.

(08-25-2015, 08:55 AM)Cormanus_imp Wrote: I love it when you're on the freeway and the traffic has ground to a halt. You can move onto the shoulder and cruise past them.