With all this talk about filtering and lane splitting in the US...what would it take?

So you're the type that's doing 90 lanesplitting traffic doing 50?

Nah. Standing by my statement: When gas hits Euro price levels, a 2-wheel 70mpg vehicle that costs $5,000 will start making more sense to people than the 4-wheel 14mpg one. (Or a 4-wheel, $30K, 45mpg hybrid)

I suspect, somewhere, a Brit is laughing at you.

Maybe the excessively wide lanes ar why people feel like they need to lane split at 80 mph, and cage drivers are so fucking sloppy- because they can be.

Take two standard cars- not your 102" wide beast, but a couple Camrys, let's say- about six feet wide. Center them in adjacent 10' wide lanes. That leaves four feet between them- room for a GoldWing, just. 12' wide lanes, you have a six foot wide gap- piloting a GL1800 through that should be ridiculously easy. 14' wide lanes? You can lanesplit a friggin' trike through that gap- there's more GAP than you have car.

Statute of limitations ain't up yet. I'm not sayin nuthin.

Having said that, I was riding an R1150RT, so its not like I could get all wound up. Bike was too wide. I DID put on City Lids tho.

M

That will never happen. USA fuel prices will never equal Euro fuel prices.

I and some of my friends will be trying to put this forward at some point in NH, although it's not at the top of our list of things that need to be fixed. I do miss the lanesplitting of CA (not to mention the 12-month riding season), but even for me, there are a lot of bigger problems to tackle first.

PhilB

A very accurate post. At the moment, in a lot of the states, lane splitting is illegal. Consequently, the sort of people who engage in it are (very generally speaking) ones who are prepared to ride illegally or antisocially. Loud pipes, speeding, not stopping when they clip cars etc. are all statistically more likely "per encounter with someone filtering" than if all motorcyclists filtered.

The idiom, "I might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb" applies here. If you're going to get in trouble for filtering, why not speed at the same time? If anything, your speeding will make it less likely someone will clock your plate and report you. True, this is balanced to some extent by self-preservation, but this is less of a factor in those who ride illegally and in a thrill-seeking manner, than a legitimate 'commuter'.

In the UK, the reverse is true and there's an added incentive to filter at legal(ish) speeds. As the filtering itself is legal, speeding is crossing the line into illegal behaviour. Perhaps even greater a control is the factor that it also increases the likelihood of blame being attributed to you in a collision (the faster you are going, relative to the speed of the traffic, the more likely the courts are to blame you, as opposed to the cager who change lanes without looking, into your path). If I am filtering safely, at 5mph past stationary traffic and a car suddenly opens its door, or starts moving across the divide between lanes without indicating, it will almost certainly be considered his fault. If I am nailing it through the gap at 50 in a 30, it'll almost certainly be considered solely my responsibility. This encourages moderation, even where self-preservation alone won't control behaviour.

So, most car drivers interactions here, where it's legal, are non-events. They barely notice most of us and generally, cars don't get upset by us doing it. In the states, only the hooligans do it, so interactions with the cagers tend to be poor, hence the cagers continue to oppose it. Bit of a Catch-22, isn't it? As I mentioned earlier in this thread, a lot of otherwise legal riders, starting doing it reasonably and considerately*, en masse, might be the answer.

*albeit technically illegally.

Intelligent citizens.

Like I said, I'm all for it,

It's not that hard or risky, where drivers expect it, and the riders use some common scene. I was just pointing out the obsticals as seen by highway engineers and the general public. Being a seasonal riding area, some of the summer weekend warriors can be pretty bad.

IMO, people who think splitting and filtering make riding more dangerous or safer just need to work on their riding and roadcraft skills. Its a convenience and an option to escape a bad situation, nothing more nothing less.

I remember watching some clips of a guy commuting on an R1 through downtown London. There were places he would reach up to fold his mirrors in to get through gaps.

Around here, even if one car is on the line, there is STILL enough room to filter. I've had people come over to block me, the car next to them moves thinking the idiot is merging into them.

Apparently not.

I was thinking along the lines of renting billboard space that says "watch for motorcycles filtering" I can't see where that would be illegal.

Admittedly, I'm out in the country with no zoning laws so we can pretty much do as we like.

Of course they will. It's just by the time they are equal to what EU prices are NOW, EU prices will by similarly higher!

Thinking about this some more, I'll bet there's at least a little 'we don't want to be like CA' going on as well. Especially in the neighboring states' governments.

Thoughts?

M

fixt to reflect the actual thought running thru my head when I wrote that. Not necessarily the people in the neighboring states.

I seriously doubt non riders give it any thought at all.

Jealousy about cutting line? I doubt it. Other than perhaps some momentary indignation, thinking "what a dick" when they see it done illegally, same as we all do when we see someone do something illegal, or the few dudly-do-rights playing traffic cop, the vast majority of folks probably couldn't care less one way or the other.

There are just too few of us to force the issue, our best chance would be to play the "green" card, that bikes create less pollution, use less resources, and don't create traffic issues.

Green sells, and par for the course, doesn't need any real substance, or have any real benefit other than fulfilling our desires.

Which means they will never be equal, no?

Since the Texas legislature is currently in session, I decided to write my representatives in both the State Senate and House to re-introduce a bill that unfortunately was never voted upon by the full floor. I don't know if it will get anywhere, but not doing anything it will never get anywhere

CHP has updated their site with some new info.

Was pretty vague before this update, now they share some "guidelines"

Maybe other states will follow, we can hope.

Lane Splitting General Guidelines:
http://www.chp.ca.gov/programs/lanesplitguide.html



SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- The California Highway Patrol has created a set of written guidelines on motorcycle "lane-splitting,"
the at-times hair-splitting maneuver that allows riders to legally pass vehicles in adjacent lanes by driving between them.

"There is a need to acknowledge lane-splitting is being done in California, and a need to help people understand what is reasonable,"
California Highway Patrol Sgt. Mark Pope said. "Until now, no one in authority has said how to do it safely."

About 87 percent of California motorcycle riders reported they lane-split, a recent state Office of Traffic Safety survey reported.
Some motorcyclists call it lane sharing. The survey also found that only 53 percent of California drivers knew lane-splitting is legal,
and seven percent of drivers say they have attempted to block a lane-splitting motorcyclist from passing them.

I think this is a major issue. Whatever the limited political influence motorcyclists have is being spent on the idiotic helmet laws and loud pipes.
I remember few years back, after a garbage truck driver on drugs killed 5 bikers, a couple of counties in Arizona tested filtering at the traffic lights. I don't know what came out of this.

It would take a lot more than a simple law change to make splitting/filtering a viable. A concerted marketing campaign would need to be started and continue for years to educate the public in the other 49 states that do not allow it now. Try it here and it is likely to get you killed by an enraged cager!

Jim

Sign the petition, if you haven't already!:

http://www.change.org/petitions/ny-state-senate-legalize-lane-splitting-in-new-york-state