Should Lane Splitting be legal in all 50 States

Clearly you get it.

Lane sharing was why I bought a MC in the first place. The rest of it is gravy. Like bicycling, but you go farther and faster (and don't get nearly as tired!)

So there I was... sitting in traffic on the 5 going from home to the office. That's a 40mi trip down some of the busiest freeway in Sandy Eggo. I'm in stop and go traffic...

MC goes by

Zzzzoooommmm

Hmmm

Next one goes by

Zzzzooooommmm



Third one goes by

Zzzzoooommmm



Dammit! I gotta get me one of them! That makes entirely too much sense!

So I did.

M

Hit one mirror, gave insurance information and it was taken care of. Any more sniveling?

When I first started riding on the street in Kansas and Missouri in 1979, we always lane split in traffic jams. There were a few a$$ but most did not react bad. Reduced congestion, got to work faster. Then we started cutting taxes, and government needs money.so the process of monetizing traffic enforcement started. Then things went to shit. I blame Reagan.

Rod

I saw a few car/bike accidents on the 5 over the years I lived in Sandy Eggo. Some of them were possibly even lane sharing related.

I've clipped a few mirrors on the 640A. The DS bike + tall mirrors = same height as SUV/truck mirrors. The RT? Mirrors went under everything. You wanna talk about 'Moses parting the Red Sea?!" ride the same bike the CHP rides! I had LOTS of people making LOTS of room for me on the RT.

Regardless of what the naysayers think, its really not all that hard to lane share safely.

M

Haha, same with Crown Vics and Mercury Marquis... I hate seeing those headlights behind me... then come to find out it's just a granny with a lead foot.

Even worse are the retired cop cars. Even have the lights on the A pillar.

:eek1

Around here, they've gone to cars without light bars on top of em. Makes spotting cops tough. Even worse are the Chargers. Not used to seeing that particular car as a cop car.

M

In Texas anyway, all lanes on urban roads must be at least 10 feet wide, 11 feet for highways. Preferred width is 12 feet on both if space allows (almost always on highways). A full-ton truck, even with the dual rear wheels is about 8 to 8.5 feet wide, with mirrors. If you have two lanes going the same direction, even with two of these huge trucks right beside each other, as long as they are pretty close to centered in their lane their is still plenty of space for a motorcycle to filter through safely.

Now, with most commuters in the cities finally figuring out they don't need an F-350 to go to work at the office building, imagine two Camrys beside each other. They are only 6 feet wide. That is like having a full size land between them! Very easy to safely filter in those situations.

I do it fairly regularly here in Atlanta when traffic is super backed up (usually on the freeways). I've ridden right past numerous Atlanta and DeKalb Co. police and never had a problem. A few months ago I was splitting up I-85 and ahead of me was a Georgia State Patrol car. He saw me and jutted his car out into the space to send me a "don't do that" kind of message. I read it loud and clear so I just ducked into a lane a few cars back and waited.

I think the big distinction is between the urban cops and the staties. The state troopers, I think, tend to be from the country and don't understand city-style driving/riding.

That was a joke folks.

Geez! Get it right. Its obviously Obama/Bush 2/Bush 1's fault more than it is Ronny Ray-gun's!



M

Good call.

While its possible the cop could've gotten you, it woulda been tough.

...but its real hard to outrun a Motorola... SOMEone would've been waiting for you at some point.

M

Back when I lived in east TX they used to use old drug cars, everything. F150, Corvette, Tahoe, Camaro... Hayabusa...

yep, that's how it is down here.

And I just noticed you have a Z1000! How do you like it? If I could afford to write a 10K check I would own one today (dealer has one in burnt orange ).

I don't believe you.

I just traded my Ninja 650 in for it the other day.

It is amazing. It's been my dream bike for years, even before I started riding. I'm so glad I didn't get it right away... I wanted 10,000 miles on two wheels before getting it, glad I did that, this thing is ridiculous.

here's a pic I took last night:

2012 Kawasaki Z1000 by Southwade, on Flickr