AMA Report Regarding the Safety of Lane Splitting

[Fred W]

I tried to spread the word and have received mostly negative feedback on the idea from motorcyclists.

I don't understand that. You are from Cali, right? Is this a case of the lifeboat principle? Where the Cali riders want to be the only ones who can get away with lane splitting, or something else?

 

[Twigg]

Fred made a good point about the awareness campaign that would be beneficial.

I have a datapoint, fwiw ...

I have ridden motorcycles in Europe for over 30 years. Lane-splitting, sharing, whatever you want to call it, was never an issue because it was simply "normal". The point has already been made that no more than 10 to 15 mph above the speed of the prevailing traffic, etc.

In the UK, most cars and trucks see you coming probably because they are paying attention, and move to widen the gap so that bikes can get through. In part I'm sure that is to protect their own mirrors and paintwork but whatever, it works. Some don't see you and don't move, and the very occasional driver will try to close the gap. They are idiots who think they own the road and fully deserve to lose a wing mirror.

In the last few years I have been known to use my previously developed skills here in Oklahoma and Texas (bite me).

Oklahoma in particular is where I would expect to find a higher proportion of drivers who consider that you are "cutting in line", and become angry at the disrespect of their manhood as described by the Dodge Ram 3500 they are proudly driving.

In reality that has happened very rarely. While cars and trucks are slower to get out of the way, many of them will do it if you are approaching fairly slowly and give them time to react. Sure, a higher proportion do try to close the gap, that is to be expected. Very few sound their horns, none have yet opened a door in front of me and I haven't been shot at

What I am saying is that I agree that driver awareness advertising will be necessary, but also that the driver learning curve might be shorter than many expect.

Hope so anyway.

 

[Fred W]

Not so sure about that.

People around here are far ruder than you can possibly imagine, but only when they are surrounded by the steel shell of their cars. These same people would never "cut in line" at the local supermarket, yet have no qualms about wedging their shit box utilitarian car in between you and the car ahead, even though there is barely a car length space between you.

I blame a lot of that on lack of common sense and/or awareness of basic physics, but in many cases they do it because, from their own experiences, they know that they can, and the (more perceptive) person behind will back off to avoid a fiery death. So... In their experiences they have never caused a horrible accident (or died) yet, so they believe that is unlikely to happen.

Never overestimate the intelligence of the average motorist. In many cases, there is minimal cognizant brain activity involved in their immediate actions.

 

[ionbeam]

There are just some things you only want to do once, like licking a flag pole when it's 0º F and pissing on an electric fence. Lane splitting, did it one day, all day. No thanks. Well, mebby if I was a resident and it was a daily necessity. But right now, I'd just say no.

 

[lnewlf]

I would never split lanes...

but if I got stuck in a 2 hour jam on the Adirondack Northway in July...

and I could split down to the next exit...

though not legal in NY...

nooo, that wazznt me

 

[Rider]

I tried to spread the word and have received mostly negative feedback on the idea from motorcyclists.

I don't understand that. You are from Cali, right? Is this a case of the lifeboat principle? Where the Cali riders want to be the only ones who can get away with lane splitting, or something else?

motorcyclists in other states seem to think lane splitting is crazy and don't want anything to do with it. I do not know why Cali allows it, but it seems to be getting people upset around here (CA) and some pressure to eliminate it.

 

[gotfz1]

Don't much care what any study says, don't much care what folks who don't get to do and practice it say. I know enough about it to know if they ever made it illegal here, I'd sell my bike.

Since CA is the only state in the US that allows lane sharing, shouldn't your last point be a reason to care? Especially since the CHP had pressure to remove their lane sharing guidelines, it's going in the wrong direction.

Just a clarification here. The CHP wasn't pressured to remove it by anti-lane sharing folks. A CHP officer referred to them during a traffic stop. This screwed the pooch as non-legislators are not supposed to be publishing materials that could be construed as having the force of law.

Glad to hear the study was not done by the AMA. The article you linked to gave that impression initially. (your link to the AMA web site is not working) But I found another link to a description of the Berkley Study here
I think that there is a lot of interest in lane splitting from motorcyclists elsewhere, but even after decades of the practice in California they still do not have a clear statement as to its being legal. They do not say that it is illegal, so therefore it is assumed to be a legal practice. But, they also will not come out and say "Yes, it is legal" in so many words. I'm not sure why the ambivalence since it is so widely accepted and praciticed.

If it was legalized in other areas of higher driver "intensity", like I see in most of the northeastern US, drivers would need a huge educational advertising campaign before it would be anything approaching safe to do. A lot of car drivers around here just can't stand to see another car get ahead of them in traffic, never mind one of those social deviant motorcyclists.

WRT "ambivalence" I've never felt any from riders or LEOs. The CVC (California Vehicle Code) doesn't attempt to codify all the ways you can operate a vehicle that are legal. EG it doesn't say "it's lawful to drive within the lane boundaries" but rather has codes describing all the ways you might cross the boundaries that are prohibited and exceptions to those prohibitions.

 

[supertankerm60a3]

Splitting lanes is one thing... Keeping up with Fairlaner on the freeway is another issue entirely. Funny as he hasn't posted on this one.

 

[Rider]

Don't much care what any study says, don't much care what folks who don't get to do and practice it say. I know enough about it to know if they ever made it illegal here, I'd sell my bike.

Since CA is the only state in the US that allows lane sharing, shouldn't your last point be a reason to care? Especially since the CHP had pressure to remove their lane sharing guidelines, it's going in the wrong direction.

Just a clarification here. The CHP wasn't pressured to remove it by anti-lane sharing folks. A CHP officer referred to them during a traffic stop. This screwed the pooch as non-legislators are not supposed to be publishing materials that could be construed as having the force of law.

Well, I won't pretend to even remotely comprehend our system of government. It seemed there was a complaint and that may have been an instigating event. The CHP has a number of publications that would seem to be construable in the same light. It's possible that all this publicity could go the wrong way. Imagine the result is the feds actually do get interested and end up implementing a nationwide ban. I think they are better left out of it anyway.

 

[mcatrophy]

There were some useful posts on lane splitting (filtering in my neck of the woods) in this thread. Just some more views on the process, not directly on AMA reports or the like, so I suppose slightly off topic.

 

[ANZAC]

Signed.

I can't tell you how much this would mean for us riders. We all see the videos from California, the UK and the rest of the world that allows filtering.

I ride up here in the Portland, Oregon area and filtering would make my life much easier and safer.

Please sign this guys and pass it along.

 

[Fred W]

Don't much care what any study says, don't much care what folks who don't get to do and practice it say. I know enough about it to know if they ever made it illegal here, I'd sell my bike.

Since CA is the only state in the US that allows lane sharing, shouldn't your last point be a reason to care? Especially since the CHP had pressure to remove their lane sharing guidelines, it's going in the wrong direction.

Just a clarification here. The CHP wasn't pressured to remove it by anti-lane sharing folks. A CHP officer referred to them during a traffic stop. This screwed the pooch as non-legislators are not supposed to be publishing materials that could be construed as having the force of law.

Glad to hear the study was not done by the AMA. The article you linked to gave that impression initially. (your link to the AMA web site is not working) But I found another link to a description of the Berkley Study here
I think that there is a lot of interest in lane splitting from motorcyclists elsewhere, but even after decades of the practice in California they still do not have a clear statement as to its being legal. They do not say that it is illegal, so therefore it is assumed to be a legal practice. But, they also will not come out and say "Yes, it is legal" in so many words. I'm not sure why the ambivalence since it is so widely accepted and praciticed.

If it was legalized in other areas of higher driver "intensity", like I see in most of the northeastern US, drivers would need a huge educational advertising campaign before it would be anything approaching safe to do. A lot of car drivers around here just can't stand to see another car get ahead of them in traffic, never mind one of those social deviant motorcyclists.

WRT "ambivalence" I've never felt any from riders or LEOs. The CVC (California Vehicle Code) doesn't attempt to codify all the ways you can operate a vehicle that are legal. EG it doesn't say "it's lawful to drive within the lane boundaries" but rather has codes describing all the ways you might cross the boundaries that are prohibited and exceptions to those prohibitions.

I understand what you are saying about the difficulty of codifying a negative, but... in those states that allow riding without a helmet, for example, it is clearly defined and understood that you may do so, and under what specific circumstances (that's what is missing in the Cali situation, IMO).

As an example, here in the "Live Free or Die" state (how apropos) riders with a learners permit, or under a certain age (which I am too lazy to look up) must have a helmet, but others do not. And that is both clearly defined and communicated.

I think the biggest feature that I'd personally like to see enabled would be the ability for motorcycles to "filter" in stopped traffic. Which, as I understand it, means to "split lanes" between stationary cars, like at a red light or when traffic is completely stopped. There have been times when I am sitting on a bike in stopped traffic, the bike is overheating (not the FJR) and if I were legally able to filter through the lanes I would have. But because it isn't explicitly legal, I would fear for my life that some miscreant in a car would take exception to my getting ahead of him and blow my head off, a door job, or give me the "lemon squeeze" into the adjacent car.

I don't really care about the ability to slit lanes between moving cars as I think that does increase your risk and limits the space the cars have to keep it between the lines. They seem to have enough of a challenge doing that without me being in there.

 

[LKLD]

SacramentoMike quote>

Don't much care what any study says, don't much care what folks who don't get to do and practice it say. I know enough about it to know if they ever made it illegal here, I'd sell my bike.

Mike, that's a bit drastic, don't cha' think? I would just move to Europe.

 

[03silverbullet]

no. 3574 for me on the petition.

will share it on Facebook

 

[LKLD]

Facebook is where I found out about the petition. Social media has really changed how information is shared, especially how quickly.

 

[hppants]

"I don't really care about the ability to slit lanes between moving cars as I think that does increase your risk and limits the space the cars have to keep it between the lines. They seem to have enough of a challenge doing that without me being in there"

(Beating a horse that is on its last leg...)

Fred - again respectfully, while I obviously can't dispute how you feel, I can cite the numbers directly from the study:

"Patterns of injury were significantly different comparing LSM and other motorcyclists (Table 9). LSM were notably less likely to suffer head injury (9.1% vs 16.5%), torso injury (18.6% vs 27.3%), or fatal injury (1.4% vs 3.1%) than other motorcyclists. The occurrence of neck injury and arm/leg injury did not differ meaningfully by lane-splitting status."

As I have previously stated, while the idea of lane-splitting still seems a unnatural to me (and by association "scary" and traditionally "unsafe"), my thinking on lane-splitting has definitely changed as I have learned more. The numbers are just based on the sampling (who are you, how did you ride, and what happened if you crashed), which at over 7800 - seems more than adequate to me. While we can't know all of the nuisances and circumstances associated with each and every accident, I ask...

What difference does that make?

If this simple (yet scientific) study tells me that if you take 8,000 mototcyclists, of which 82% do NOT lane split, and 18% do, and the lane-splitters have a more than twice the chance of surviving a crash than non-lane splitters - I'm going to re-think my thinking.

 

[SacramentoMike]

FYI, I just posted some new information in a new thread here. Hope it goes someplace.

 

[AVGeek]

I made the transition from dirt to street because lane sharing is legal in California. For many years, I avoided it, because I was worried about the other drivers. Once I finally faced that fear, I wondered why I didn't do it sooner. I covered a 200 mile territory in SoCal, from the south end end of Orange County, all the way up to the coast to Santa Barbara. Riding always saved me time and stress, and I really understood why we call car drivers "cagers" on the few occasions I had to drive.

Now that I no longer live in Cali, I do miss having the legal ability to filter through traffic on occasion, and support legalizing it and educating all road users as to the benefits for everyone. I've said it elsewhere, I think the biggest hurdle to universal acceptance is the competitive American nature, or as Fred puts it, the "hey you can't cut in line" mentality people seem to have behind the wheel.

 

[TomInPA]

Petition is at 6002. I think this is all we need to know about why lane sharing will not spread to other states. Between no one gives a shit or they fear it, there is not a large constituency of advocates.

 

[hppants]

Tom regrettably, I agree. I'm a member of 2 other M/C forums and each one had buddies that sent me messages to sign up (which I already have). My presumption is that this has gone viral among the M/C community. 6000 signatures ain't gonna cut it.