Total Motorcycle Community Forums

Since it is perfectly legal anywhere in California I'd never suggest that someone was "wrong" for doing it, but you should certainly be aware of the "extra" risk you take when going between cars. Riding is a risky affair, true, but we usually try to minimize risk. When we don't mimimize risk we take the chance we may not get to ride again. Even where it is legal, I can understand that it would make some people mad. They have to wait in traffic and you get to go. Is that OK for them to be mad? No, they should get a bike if they don't like it, but they don't look at it that way, and you are the one they can hurt. For some cagers they don't even need one more thing to hate about motorcycles.

Regarding filtering or lane spliting where it is not legal - I wish you wouldn't. As with most biking activities, if you make us look like a bunch of "tools", you hurt us all. But I suppose everyone has a different level they ride at and different things they call risk. I ride over the speed limit often, so I guess I might make riders look like jerks. Some guys think wheelies on the highway are perfectly safe and would call me a "nancy-boy" for seeing that as crazy.

I have this vision that doesn't go along with most riders I think. The idea that non-riders would view riders as being among the most curtious and safe riders on the road. I guess if you ride a motorcycle there is at least a good chance you might love the risk and that safety is not the highest priority. Looking around at the amount of riders who don't wear helmets in here in Ohio (where it is legal to do so) I can see safety can never really be the highest priority in motorcycling as a whole.

Enjoy youself and good luck. I guess that's all I can say. I would say ride safe, but that would be ruining the fun for some - so I'll just say, try to not hurt anyone else.

"The idea that non-riders would view riders as being among the most curtious and safe riders on the road."

Cagers will never look at us as anything more than too small to make them late for their lunch meeting. That's if they see us at all.

"I guess if you ride a motorcycle there is at least a good chance you might love the risk and that safety is not the highest priority."

We're riding two wheeled death machines. We either make our peace with the added risks or we're mentally challenged. Beyond that is a series of choices you make on every ride.

"Enjoy youself and good luck. I guess that's all I can say. I would say ride safe, but that would be ruining the fun for some - so I'll just say, try to not hurt anyone else."

That's just passive-aggressive. Yes, SOME of us ride between cars. We do this to avoid being corn holed by sloppy driving tuna boat captains. We do this to get where we're going, faster, in clogged traffic. We do this because it's perfectly legal in our God-given California Republic.

If you want to make oblique references to SOME of us at least have the decency to provide crash data supporting your obvious view that lane splitting is dangerous. Show me how my riding at 5-10 mph between motionless cars is a great danger to myself, or the air bagged occupants of the cars!

I am with Phil, do you know how much Prozac they sell around the world and on top of that, THEY HAVE CELL PHONES. They can live in that state I prefer the hyper reality of making sure nobody hits me from behind.

I have no data. It just doesn't seem safe to me. I wasn't trying to tick anyone off. Just expressing my opinion. I truely hope you never have incident where you get hurt. I have to explain also since we have a NO filtering/lane spliting law here I have little exprience with the topic. Just learning. Still seems you could have small accidents and when I lived in California this activity was not limited to 5 or 10 MPH in non-moving traffic. Maybe you only do this under the conditions you listed. I don't think I'm paralyzed by fear, yet I do use extra caution, and enjoy riding in this manner, as do others.

Scan, we appreciate your input, at least I do, and I think that a lot depends on where you ride even differing in different parts of the country. JHB is a very agressive enviroment anyway wherby Durban and Capetown are more laid back. In JHB everything has to be done yesterday, the other two places are "whenever". Lane splitting for me is a means to an end and that end being in my bubble. I believe in defensive driving techniques which includes being a little aggressive sometimes. And I stand by my comments about cell phone using drug induced spaced out cage drivers who could not give a S#!t about anyone else other than themselves. http://www.whybike.com/motorcycle5.htm

Many years ago, I was in a "cage", stuck in traffic on the west-bound upper deck of the S.F.-Oakland Bay Bridge. An accident had happened only a short distance ahead of me. I was startled by a CHP motorcycle trooper as he rode by my window. A few seconds later, I heard a loud noise ahead of me and I (and several other people) witnessed the trooper airborne after running into a car door of a surprised cager who was getting out to see if he could see the accident.

Fortunately, the trooper wasn't badly hurt, but if I was ever inclined to "lane split", the memory of that incident serves to keep me in "my" lane - no splitting for me.

Exiting your vehicle in stalled traffic is not a good idea, for this very reason.

PhilD9er wrote:We're riding two wheeled death machines. We either make our peace with the added risks or we're mentally challenged. Beyond that is a series of choices you make on every ride.

I'll take mentally challenged with a side order of idiocy please...


I lane split. I have had cars try to cut me off, which is annoying but so far has been futile for them.

In the UK it is okay to lane split in slow moving or stalled traffic when it is safe to do so, however if there is any type of accient the automatic assumption is that the rider is at fault because it obviously was not safe to do so.

I've had drivers winge at me about Bikes lane splitting, and yes they rarely take the arguement that I get cold, wet and have no stereo. Pointing out that by lane splitting a bike is leaving more raod for them and shorter queues has some effect on drivers who had not previously thought about that.


The CHP's story just reminds me about my normal bias of drivers observational skills - am I the only person who makes sure they know what is behind them BEFORE opening the car door???

plainsman wrote: cager who was getting out to see if he could see the accident.

This irritates me to no end whether Im on the bike or in the car. For one people should not be getting out of their cars on the road period, but people need to stop gawking at accidents. The biggest incident I can remember was while I was driving from Tucson to Phoenix. Traffic was jam packed. Took me almost an hour just to get outside the Tucson limits. I knew there had to be an accident. So finally after over an hour of crawling in traffic I see the accident...on the OTHER SIDE of the freeway (this is an interstate with about 50 yards of landscaping between sides). Literally, people were stopping their cars on the freeway just to look at the accident.

People have no respect. If you're interested in the accident, go offer to help. If you can't help, just move on.

If you had to ride every day in UK traffic on some of the most congested roads in the world then you would understand the value of filtering. (There are a lot of people on this little island. In land area, the UK is smaller than New York State but its population is only a fifth that of the U.S.). In rush hour traffic, you learn to filter. The alternative - your clutch hand dies, your brain goes to putty and you turn into a heaving volcano of frustration (like the cagers around you).

Filtering is dangerous, but so is crossing the road. It's a skill to learn and there are survival techniques to master. Besides, filtering rocks.

Yep some cagers hate us for doing it. But since meaningless hatred is pretty widespread in this old world of ours I don't think you can run you life on the basis of what other people think of you.