Modern Vespa

Well, if you ride on the freeway (that's "highway" to most people outside of Kahleefornia) on a capable bike, this is a pretty good piece:
Lane Splitting IS Legal in The Republic

It's nice to see news pieces like this that actually benefit us by making people aware that we're within the law. It's too bad they succumbed to the same thing everyone else has done in trying to numerically quantify the speed at which lane splitting is allowed. To my knowledge, that is not written down anywhere in the California vehicle code.

I'd be happy to be proven wrong, though.

I believe here lane splitting is illegal. You're lucky to have it legal in CA. Another reason to move to San Francisco.

Unfortunately Youtube doesn't work on my comuter, here at work, so I wasn't able to watch that.

I tried to find the source news site, and ran across this.

http://www.laneshare.com/content/view/24/34/

It's an interesting read.

Their was a Harley Rider in Vegas that yelled at one of the bastards telling him that he couldent lane split in Las Vegas. I told him it's not that we can't do it its just that it's against the law. What's he gunna do go tell on us.

mmm, not legal here, but i've done it once or twice when there is an accident and my stella would overheat if idling for an hour in the sun...

if there isn't really a mile per hour limit, well there should be...lane splitting has a definite purpose, gettting there faster isn't one of them (it is a by product, but not a reason)...anybody who lane splits at speed is asking to die...but for stopped traffic or slow traffic, then splittling at 20 or 30 mph is fine...just be careful...lane splitting at 40 or more mph?? well i hope you have a will prepared because somebody will change lanes or whatnot and you will be leaving a big scooter dent in the side of a car

g

The California law was Lane Splitting not more than 25 miles per hour faster than traffic flow. Not to exceed the speed limit. Not sure if that is still the case but is seems to be kinda safe.
Still every now and then some A** opens his door just to be funny.

That's not actually written down anywhere. It's only "safe and prudent", at the discretion of the LEO.

When I was a fulltime cager, commuting through craptastic L.A. stop-and-kinda-go traffic on a daily basis, there was a rider I saw every day on the 110 freeway on a BMW tourer/adventure bike with the big side cases on his bike. He used to split all the time, but instead of the reaction you described from said A**holes, I used to move over and give him room to make sure he didn't scuff my TT! Selfish on my part, yes, but those cases were very scary to me at the time.

Yes, I split nearly every day on my way home.

Whenever someone moves over for me, I give a little thanks wave, down low.

Some cagers, over do the move out of the way thing.

Interesting story, robotribe. Any clue why it's illegal on the outside? Maybe in case people are pulled over on the left or right, I guess. On first blush, those would seem to be the safer places.

Edit: anyone familiar with the law in Colorado? (Thanks.)

By "on the outside" do you mean in the emergency lanes.

Riding there is illegal.

Not IN the emergency lane, but lane-splitting on that line, is what I meant.

I'd bet it's something like salty dodd says about it being illegal. While lane splitting might make sense for various reasons between the "real" lanes, the outside most areas are probably exclusively meant for emergency situations.

Just a guess.

Displaying indifference to local laws could have been physically dangerous. As if cagers aren't already innatentive without a flagrant breach of local practices(and laws)! Glad to her the lucky bastard went home safe....

I wish its legal here in Georgia...I am contemplating of getting an online petition to the guys in charge here, but I think it has been done before and fail.

Hey Thanks

My opinion is if cagey-drivers were sitting on there engines and balancing their cars with no AC or radio, then they could complain.

oops! (farted and edited)

You are 100% correct

Note that he said that doing so at high speed is illegal because it isn't safe. The whole key here is the word safe which unfortunately means something different to ever cop out there.

"Safe and Prudent" puts more restrictions on the speed than giving an actual number. For example, in Montana several years ago they did away with the daylight speed limits and had it as "Safe and Prudent" during the day, and 65mph at night. People would definitely travel up to 80-90 mph easily (I did this many times), however once you started going over 90mph the police were much more likely to pull you over because they viewed that as not "Safe and Prudent". You didn't necessarily have to be driving out of control or in "traffic" (not much of that in MT really) to get pulled over.

I am wondering is it legal in Texas?
I did a few times on my reflex when my girlfriend went crazy and need to go bathroom so bad... in bad traffic at 1mph, I decided to sneak and drove thur about 50 cars to get out so she can go to bathroom haha..
few weeks ago, after I bought fly 150.. we did a few times :-/ it was awesome.. lucky no cops saw me!
I saw a motorcycle rider did that.. oh well

I was pulled over for lane splitting here in Northern Cal. When I explained to the officer that it was legal, he replied that it is unsafe and he could site me for that. I replied "You can site me for anything, but if is not illegal, I'll see you in court!" He got back in his car without another word. He was ignorant of the law and thought he had the power to make up whatever he felt like. I disagreed. The rest of the country should allow "lane sharing" also. More people are hit from behind while sitting in traffic than are hit while sharing. Split lanes! It is the safest way to travel

Dan

wow.. some cops are jerk like that..
If can't do in Texas, I want to talk to the court or law something about get lane sharing here

I don't think it's legal in Texas. The court would be of no use to you unless you feel it's a Constitutional rights issue...
You could write your local legistators, but I think it's a hard sell, especially in Texas where the cars are big and the lanes are narrow.

I have spent a good deal of time trying to find anything on lane sharing/splitting the the CA vehicle code:

http://www.dmv.ca.gov/pubs/vctop/vc/vc.htm

I've read all the relevant (as far as I could tell) laws re: motorcycles, "rules of the road," use of lanes, passing, etc. and have yet to find any mention of the practice. I'm not a lawyer, though...

Anyone else want to give it a go?

I definately know it's not legal in Texas. I think there's only one or two other states where splitting is legal, aside from California.

That said, I loved being able to split when I was back in LA. I lived in Burbank and had a job in Santa Monica. As it was, it took me about 45 minutes to get to work in the morning, and usually an hour or more on the way back. Had to split probably about 75% of the time, both ways. I can't imagine how long it would have taken me without doing that. And for a while, I did actually have a bike that was prone to overheating, so it was a lifesaver. Never split when traffic was going very fast, though. It just made me nervous. But hey, when the freeway is a parking lot, it's not a big deal.

I heard/read somewhere that the lanesplitting law in California is fairly old, and that it came from the times when motorcycles weren't cooled internally very well. Supposedly it was to prevent the bikes from overheating/dying from just sitting idle in traffic. Anyone know if this is the correct history?

I heard the same story (although it's not a law, exactly, it's the lack of any law prohibiting it). I also heard that the California Highway Patrol has come out in favor of retaining the [lack of law] because they want their Motorcycle Officers to be able to continue the practice while patrolling. All of this is hearsay, of course, I have no verifiable source for it.

The last part sounds a little fishy to me because in most states (California included) I would expect the police to simply flagrantly violate traffic laws to meet their own needs.

More lane-splitting apocypha: I heard that it was still legal as a means for relieving traffic congestion.

I think it's funny that they talk to the local Harley dealer. There are few Harleys that could lane split in the surface street traffic I encounter. Too wide.

My questionable lane splitting maneuver: There's a wide, 2-lane street on my commute which is lined on each side with parked cars. (For locals, it's Gower between Melrose and Sunset.) Cars line up preety deep here, so I'll ride between the parked cars and those just waiting to inch forward.

But I'm always very cautious when splitting and have my own set of "rules" for when and where I'll do it.

A big problem in Key West is people who do lane split by passing on the right. For some reason locals who do it with (illegal) gay abandon get away with it and renters who are trying to be cool get knocked off all the time. And boy do they get hurt. Officers give tickets if they see you.
People lane split like crazy on Miami freeways but there again road rules are merely suggestions in Miami, a vibrant and un-gringo Latin American metropolis .

Thanks for posting this robotribe I remember seeing the teaser on this for the evening news but life got in the way of me seeing it. nice to finally see it.

P.S. I split lanes nearly everyday. But as safe as I feel comfortable with. Often I have to get out of the way of other splitters because they are going much faster than I'm willing to go between the cars. Other days I don't even bother because something in my gut tells me something bad will happen. Last time I examined this feeling and realized that the feeling in my gut was a lag in my head and I wasn't aware enough to react the the added dangers of splitting lanes so I rodes like a very narrow car.

it was a law, not sure when they changed it to just not prohibited. It use to be explicitly called out in the vehicle code what lanes you could split and how fast you could go.

even though that section was replaced with the safe a prudent crap that makes it the motorcycles fault if anything goes wrong you can still fide reference to the original law. last time I went searching I found the original language mentioned in the negative to make it clear that a motorcycle with a sidecar could not split lanes.

They do every day and you better not point it out to them or they will find one of those catch all laws and get you worse. I know, I speak from experience.

This is ILLEGAL

I just love hawaii. Nobody really cares much about anything. I have a neighbor who outruns the motorcycle cops. He also pulls them over and yells at them when they cut him off No tickets yet. One day coming home on the freeway i saw 2 cars pulled over. One had stopped the other had run into his rear. The owners of the cars, two very BIG samoans were duking it out. There version of car insurance. Cops went by didn't even stop. Yeah we lane split. Don't know if it's LEGAL.

So is speeding.

Yeah, I kind of assumed it is. But so hard to resist that wide, empty space...

I got pulled over by a CHP motor officer for doing this but he only gave me a verbal warning.

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I got pulled over by a CHP motor officer for doing this but he only gave me a verbal warning.[/quote]

That's because there was no vehicle code violation. If two vehicles share a lane, and neither goes out of the "lane" should the one closest to the curb get a ticket? Or does that apply only if the outside one is a motorcycle? Either way, two vehicles are side-by-side in the same lane. The laws never say "this is legal" they only tell you what is NOT legal.

I don't know about that one. In NJ, two offences apply; passing on right and improper use of shoulder.