Lane Splitting: Your Take

I recently attached a link on one aspect of lane splitting on my blog (http://geezerwithagrudge.blogspot.com/2011/07/lane-sharing-study.html) and added my own take to the discussion there. Mostly, I'm getting negative response from riders around the country to the idea of expanding lane splitting/sharing/filtering from California. Personally, lane splitting is the only thing I miss about SoCal and I think it should be expanded . . . everywhere.

I'm going to write more about this in my Minnesota Motorcycle Monthly column next month and it would be interesting to have more perspective on why motorcyclists think this is a bad idea.

I value my life way too much to do any such thing around where I live. People in cars do enough to scare me when I'm riding without adding the risk involved in shooting up through lines of cars waiting for the light to change.

I just don't see any "tactical" advantage to it.

The risks far outweigh the rewards in my opinion.

Most of that opinion is based on the fact that nobody here does it, so no car driver would understand nor expect such a thing to happen.

There is definitely a time and place for it. I'll do it when there is bumper to bumper traffic for miles. But I won't do it to get to the front of the line at a light or when traffic is moving at a good clip.

IMO, lane splitting at traffic lights is safe. In big urban environments (SF Bay Area), it really makes a difference in my ability to cut through town quickly. Where lane splitting gets dodgy is on highways, especially in slow/heavy traffic. That is where you get cars darting around trying to save 5 seconds on their commute. Very sketchy. I still do it, but in these cases it would be best to have a LOUD exhaust so people hear you coming. I'm not a fan of loud exhausts, but this is one case where they are better.

As for should it be legal everywhere - Yes, I think it should. But, it's the rider who is taking their life into their own hands. You have to be comfortable with it. The other thing is that in rural areas, lane splitting is irrelevant anyways.

You need to have a lot of motorcyclists commuting for lane splitting to work well and be accepted by cagers. Mention 'motorcycle' to non riders here and they usually think only of reckless squidly riding, or obnoxiously LOUD pipes.

I've done some riding in Western Europe; lane splitting there is wonderful!

deerHater wrote:

and be accepted by cagers.

Key point.

Which is why I stated I'd not do it here.

motokid wrote:

deerHater wrote:

and be accepted by cagers.

Key point.

Which is why I stated I'd not do it here.

Agreed. Once/if they get it established here, fine.

And before that the driving 'skills' of cagers here would need to improve too.

motokid wrote:

I value my life way too much to do any such thing around where I live. People in cars do enough to scare me when I'm riding without adding the risk involved in shooting up through lines of cars waiting for the light to change.

I just don't see any "tactical" advantage to it.

The risks far outweigh the rewards in my opinion.

Most of that opinion is based on the fact that nobody here does it, so no car driver would understand nor expect such a thing to happen.

+1 I see people splitting lanes here, but not too often. I don't even like riding a bike in city traffic, but riding in rush hour splitting lanes would be madness the way people drive here. Az drivers aren't motorcycle friendly, anyway. And there is an unspoken rule in freeway driving. Even if you are going slowly, you don't let anyone pass you. You drive side by side with the slowest car or truck you can find so no once can get by. A motorcycle splitting lanes violates that rule. It is ok for them to run you over, then, & they won't even get a ticket.

The only time you really see lane splitting, & i think this is the primary use, is when highway traffic is creeping in rush hour setting. I've considered passing cars, when traffic is stopped, on the shoulder, but figured the risk was not worth the reward, as Motokid said.

I don't know if i would be in favor of general lane splitting. I'm not going to rag on anyone who wants to do it, just like helmet wear, but i don't think i would do it unless under extreme duress. But then, i don't do wheelies, stoppies, or powerslides, either. I putt around like an old lady looking at birds & flowers.

Like sex, most who have never done it aren't sure it's a good idea. But as a Southern California grandpa it's the cat's meow and makes a tremendous differance in the time it takes me to travel at rush hour. Besides that It's a fucking blast at high speed, but it does piss people off when I hit their mirrors.

I split lanes... let me rephrase that. I share lanes with cagers on a daily basis. I wouldn't change it for the world and most drivers here in California will go out of their way to make sure you have room to pass (moving to the left, hand signaling you to pass to let you know they see you, etc...) as long you are respectful. There is a riding etiquette that all riders needs to do when sharing lanes with cars so you don't piss them off and have them start to become offensive against motorcyclist.

If I split lines to pull up in front of traffic at a intersection. I always pay attention to the light to make sure I take off right when the light turns green and always riding a little faster than the car I went in front of.

If people move to the side of the lane to give you room to pass I always wave at them after I pass. I guess it makes them feel good inside, like they are contributing to society somehow. lol

If people are not paying attention and not giving enough room to pass, I not the type of rider who gets pissed off then cut them off or make explicit hand gestures. We are all human and can't see everything all the time. If i do pass them I just point to the left to let them know to stick to the left of the lane.

I never had a bad experience sharing lanes with car drivers in all of my 10 years of riding.

BoredAzHell20 wrote:

. . . If I split lines to pull up in front of traffic at a intersection. I always pay attention to the light to make sure I take off right when the light turns green and always riding a little faster than the car I went in front of.

If people move to the side of the lane to give you room to pass I always wave at them after I pass. I guess it makes them feel good inside, like they are contributing to society somehow. lol

If people are not paying attention and not giving enough room to pass, I not the type of rider who gets pissed off then cut them off or make explicit hand gestures. We are all human and can't see everything all the time. If i do pass them I just point to the left to let them know to stick to the left of the lane.

I never had a bad experience sharing lanes with car drivers in all of my 10 years of riding.

That's good to hear. I left SoCal in 1991 and probably put 200k miles on a variety of motorcycles in that state during my 10 years, splitting lanes every day between Huntington Beach and Long Beach and Costa Mesa and everywhere I went. I probably drove the family car 5k miles in the same period. Never once had a problem.

mordicai wrote:

Like sex, most who have never done it aren't sure it's a good idea.

Which is probably where the phrase, "Try it - You'll like it !" originated (from a man obviously).

mordicai wrote:

But as a Southern California grandpa it's the cat's meow and makes a tremendous differance in the time it takes me to travel at rush hour.

Morticai: Are talking about sex, or sharing lanes ? ...or both at the same time ? Frankly the latter wouldn't surprise me !

mordicai wrote:

Besides that It's a fucking blast at high speed, but it does piss people off when I hit their mirrors.

Maybe you better tuck their legs in a little closer. ...or take the FMPs off of them before they get on !

P.S. If cars in parallel lanes are stopped, I'm going through.

The two things I look for are lane-changes spaces ( as to not get moved over on), and open windows (Cigarettes flying out the window). The latter will usually result in a missing driver side mirror.

I like split somewhat frequently, mostly at traffic lights but sometimes on the highway. Depends if I see an opening or not that I can fit through or whatever. Mostly to get away from scary drivers as much as to save time, but it definitely saves time.

skierd wrote:

I like split somewhat frequently, mostly at traffic lights but sometimes on the highway. Depends if I see an opening or not that I can fit through or whatever. Mostly to get away from scary drivers as much as to save time, but it definitely saves time.

Best place ever is trying to get into the US from Mx. There's like 10 lanes of bumper to bumper cages moving 2" per minute. Zip up to the customs, in 30 seconds, saves 3 hours.

I would be so freaked out riding in mx.

My last memory there was taking a taxi to papas n beer and the taxi we were in was going really fast. I saw a stop sign coming up and he wasnt slowing down. Everybody in the car was screaming, "alto!! Alto!!!" and vroom straight through the intersection he went.

Pretty funny but scary as crap! Lol

I did a week tour of Baja in '88 or '89 on my KLR600 (not a typo). Had a big tank, home-made panniers, and packed snorkeling gear for fishing at camp sites. You have to assume everyone is unable to read traffic signs, but other than TJ the trip was amazing. Went through a bag of coffee filters, straining my gas, and I have never drank so much soda in my life, avoiding water.

I do remember the bike routine at the boarder, though. I wouldn't have thought to filter to the front, but everyone was doing it and the boarder cops just waved us on.

Lane splitting in this province will wind you up wearing someone's door. Pple see you coming and they simply open up their door.

I have heard of an instance of that in CA back in the 80's. The motorcycle was travelling a little to quickly. The cager opened the do, preseumably, to teach the motorcyclist a "lesson." The bike slammed into the door, ejecting the motorcylist over the car and driving the motorcycle into the driver's seat, killing the driver. The motorcyclist survived with minor injuries. I suspect that tactic wouldn't be used a lot if lane-splitting became legal in your province.

SheWolf is in a province where the family car is often a 3/4 or 1 ton diesel pickup where door is probably nearly above your front wheel if it isn't in the first place. Not to mention great big metal mirrors sticking way out so they can see past their trailer or quad/sled rack. Play silly bugger with that at your own risk. It is a fairly regular occurrence around here to have lane splitters run their faces into those mirrors that they didn't see in their rush. It probably leaves a mark, along with the biker collecting all the tickies and the "at fault" on their insurance.

I've heard of the "kick their door/clean their driver's mirror off". Even saw it once. Then watched the biker get a massive shitkicking when his way was blocked a bit further up ahead and the guy in faller garb ran up, dragged him off his bike and used his face to sponge up the pavement before getting tired of that and working him and his bike over with his corks on. I didn't feel any inclination to get out and help the guy get out of his just desserts, and apparently nobody else did either. Didn't turn out well at all for our motorcycle vigilante - and this isn't even a place where somebody might have a firearm in the vehicle and be crazy enough to use it. Or where their 120 mile an hour vehicle catches up with your 95 mph bike ten minutes down the road after traffic opens up.

On a more pragmatic level, that might work out okay for you, but the next poor bastard that comes along on a motorcycle, totally unaware, gets to pay your dues for what you did from some motorist now as enraged as you were.

If lane splitting is legal in a jurisdiction, then motorists should have grown up with that and simply consider it a normal part of traffic flow and presumably it isn't a problem for anybody. If it isn't, it isn't worth getting hurt over, inadvertently or deliberately, at least not for me. I'm just not in that much of a hurry. I want to keep myself an out in traffic, and lane splitting doesn't seem to leave me a lot of that after watching people cutting back and forth across lanes trying to get where they're going one car length faster.

This was posted over at ADVrider:

click me <-- video of lane splitting


That kind of thing here would get you killed almost instantly.

1) Car drivers here would freak and swerve into you
2) Car drivers here would road-rage and run you down or open door (as Shewolf stated)
3) Car drivers here never use turn signals or move right to allow faster traffic to pass on the left. Almost never that is.

There's no way I'd place my trust in car drivers in that situation.

Not around here.

Not to mention that cops here would have you pulled over for reckless driving in a heartbeat for doing that.

Here in San Diego it's just the way most bikers ride on the Highway. I can change lanes and move forward or back faster then the cars. I keep up pretty good on the interstate and lane splitting at 70mph gets the adrenaline going. I'd rather be riding a single track but this is what I got during the week. Each to his own.

motokid wrote:

This was posted over at ADVrider:

click me <-- video of lane splitting

That kind of thing here would get you killed almost instantly.

In my CA experince, I think that would get you killed in CA, too. That's stupid, not in the spirt of the law or anywhere near the letter of the law and is as likely to get you pulled over in California as in Minnesota.

While there were a few people at ADVrider saying the guy was riding like an ass - there were plenty of others saying that was not abnormal behavior.

I would split lanes but most folks in Houston are on one white line or the other so you literally can't.

Once I get some more aggressive offroad tires I'll likely start "splitting" the grass/dirt shoulders since that's the only method of doing so around here... nobody knows where their truck/car/suv actually is in relation to the lane.

motokid wrote:

While there were a few people at ADVrider saying the guy was riding like an ass - there were plenty of others saying that was not abnormal behavior.

What that translates to is, "... there are a lot of people out there riding like asses".

...and that shot, on PCH from Topanga Beach down to Santa Monica is notoriously dangerous for splitting lanes primarily because of the lane width. ...and ESPECIALLY on a Sunday. ...and I'd ridden that section enough to know that video was shot on a Sunday.

So besides that guy riding like an ass (IMO - mostly because he used VERY POOR JUDGEMENT by not waiting for a fellow biker to acknowledge his presence before he passed them between lanes (could potentially have had that rider move over on you to go between lanes and you both go down) ) I would judge prior use of alcohol by the belch at the beginning of the video.

My rule of thumb, as a rider, never equate "Sporty" riding with experience. The adage: There are OLD riders and there are BOLD riders, but there are no OLD, BOLD riders.

Exemplified by accelerations while "on the line" with more than car length spaces available for lane changes, MOST EXPERIENCED riders would (and SHOULD) chill in that situation even if lane splitting is legal.