08-20-2015, 10:37 PM
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..."
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..."