AMA Report Regarding the Safety of Lane Splitting

I read an article in this month's Rider magazine with interest regarding a recently released AMA report on the safety of lane splitting. Here's a publically available article on the report. It doesn't offer all of the statistics that the Rider mag article does, but it grabs the gist of it:

https://www.twowheelmania.com/2014/11/02 ... -benefits/......

And here's AMA's release:

https://www.americanmotorcyclist.com/New ... tting.aspx.....

To be clear, I'm not touting the AMA. I do think that the sampling in the report is significant and the numbers don't lie regardless of who's using them.

Also, the report makes it clear that to be effective for both the biker and the cager, the safe guidance for lane splitting MUST be followed. There is a right way and a wrong way. The wrong way can kill you - period. But it would appear that, at least from the data in this report, if done correctly, lane splitting is not only safe, but may actually be safer for the motorcyclists than ... well .... NOT lane splitting.

I have to admit - before I went to Europe, I thought this whole concept was ridiculous and unfathomable. But after seeing it in widespread use particularly in Barcelona (many multi-lane, high traffic situation), it's very easy to see the safety benefit of this to the motorcyclists:

1. We get our own lane all to ourselves. Very little chance of another motorcycle rear-ending us. Our view in our "lane" ahead is virtually unobstructed.

2. With cars stacked in each lane adjacent to us, there is little chance that they will switch lanes and mow us because the vehicle next to them is blocking that from happening. When traffic starts to spread out, the report indicates the risk goes up significantly. This is why following the CHP guidelines is paramount. Filter back into a normal lane when traffic spreads out. Don't go faster than 10 mph above the cages when splitting. Scan way ahead as you ride and split, etc.

3. With vehicles acting as a visible wall on either side of you, the risk of a vehicle pulling out in front of you from a perpendicular road, street, driveway, etc. is greatly reduced.

The 3 situations above are my biggest fears as a rider in high traffic situations. Originally, I thought lane splitting was a small way to deal with urban traffic issues. Perhaps encourage motorists to get a motorcycle for traffic purposes and ultimately get a few more vehicles moving at the same time on a congested highway. Now, I'm not so sure that is the primary benefit. BION - I think the safety benefit for the biker is the big picture item.

I'm hoping this catches on elsewhere in the States.

The link to AMA is truncated. I can't find it.

Just acting as the devil's advocate here:, the AMA is just too close to the issue. It has a serious conflict of interest towards making lane splitting appear to be a good thing for all parties. I'm not saying that it is or is not, but nobody from the outside is going to believe their data is completely unbiased.

It is pretty well known that, regardless of the original data source, statisticians can make any data say anything that they want it to with the right amount of filtering and massaging. For this kind of a report to be widely accepted outside the motorcycle community would require an uninterested third party performing the data gathering and analysis Just my opinion.

Don't need a report to tell me what 36 years of experience lane sharing has taught me but suppose validation cannot hurt

There is a petition going around to allow lane splitting nationwide. https://wh.gov/i1D3r

I know not everyone would agree with the concept, no matter how it's proven, but I signed it. Though I don't think it'll ever happen.

99K signatures needed by Jan 1 1K gathered. Probably not gonna happen.

Firm believer in lane sharing here.

I am pretty sure Fairlaner is not following the recommended standards....

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.

Well, now there is one less signature needed.

Takes only a second and you can opt out of getting any further White House spam.

Hi All,

Speaking as a European to whom lane splitting or filtering is now second nature, I would have to say that the factors reported in the article make sense.

filtering is a safe way of travelling which i use daily. My experience here shows me that if

1. cars know that filtering is going to happen (traffic jam situations, queues etc) they will give way and accomodate you. People understand that a motorbike is designed to be nimble and today many people who drive cars also drive a scooter or moped...so they "understand".

2. it is not safe to speed through while filtering, because it is important to give drivers time you know you are coming.

3. if cars are not bumper to bumper, filtering becomes a much more complex exercise because you are not actually filtering, but performing a series of overtaking manouvres....there the rules of safety change totally and I find myself more confident if I approach them as lane switching/overtaking manoevres in terms of signalling, life saver checks , mirror checks etc.

4. i personally wear a hi viz vest specifically because of filtering. I also find that switching on my hazard lights/emergency lights makes a great improvement (even though i suspect I am being taken for a law enforcement officer).

R.

Ben - your comments make sense to me - again especially after seeing this first hand this year in Europe this summer.

Fred - a HUGE clarification here. The study was NOT performed by the AMA. The AMA picked up the report and ran with it - and I think other motorcycle related media followed. The study was performed by a research center at UC Berkley, and submitted formally to the California Office of Traffic Study. That doesn't make the report any less susceptible to "statistical interpretation", but at least in my mind, the researchers should be considered more biased about the results than, say - the AMA.

Here's some of the summary, taken directly from the report (word for word) :

- Lane-splitting riders (2.7 percent of crashes) were less likely to be rear-ended by another vehicle than were other motorcyclists (4.6 percent)

- Lane-splitting motorcyclists involved in crashes were notably less likely than other motorcyclists in crashes to suffer head injury (9.1 percent vs. 16.5 percent), torso injury (18.6 percent vs. 27.3 percent), or fatal injury (1.4 percent vs. 3.1 percent) than other motorcyclists.

- The proportion of motorcyclists with a head injury was 6.3 percent for those lane-splitting consistent with the "safe and prudent" traffic speed guidelines, 10.7 percent for those lane-splitting in traffic flowing at 30 mph or less but exceeding the traffic speed by more than 10 mph, 9 percent for those lane-splitting in traffic flowing faster than 30 mph but exceeding traffic speed by less than 10 mph, and 20.5 percent for those who were lane-splitting in traffic flowing at more than 30 mph and who were exceeding traffic speed by more than 10 mph.

As you can see, they just sampled the accident data, using variables available from crash reports. I don't see much room for "interpretation" here. Still, the report offers the following disclaimer:

"This analysis has limitations. We used data from the Enhanced Motorcycle Collision Data Project. This data set is lacking information on some basic factors that are needed for a more comprehensive analysis. These factors include rider age, rider gender, motorcycle characteristics, and numerous collision and roadway characteristics. Information on these factors is being acquired in a related project and will available for inclusion in future analyses of lane-splitting."

So we may learn more in the future.

The last bullet above is really striking to me. Lane splitting speed is very important for the biker's safety, IMO.

There are other statistical results that are interesting in this report, including the difference in injury for lane splitters and non-lane splitters on the weekend v/s weekday, time of day, and even type of helmet worn.

Still and sadly - there doesn't seem to be much interest in this elsewhere in the country.

Signed...still need a lot of signatures.

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.

Fred W said:

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.

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Agreed, same holds true for this area, IMHO.

El Toro Joe said:

Signed...still need a lot of signatures.

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+1, Gunny; Signed, JSNS! Jawohl, like Arnie says:

1212 signed with my signature.

It can be done if we fire up all the forums to sign, so please cross post in all the forums your on, and encourage those forums members to do the same.

SacramentoMike said:

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.

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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.

We're up to 1280 on the petition - slim pickings.

LKLD said:

There is a petition going around to allow lane splitting nationwide. https://wh.gov/i1D3r
I know not everyone would agree with the concept, no matter how it's proven, but I signed it. Though I don't think it'll ever happen.

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The petition period seems to have started Dec. 2nd, so just a few days in. It's ~10% through the open period and only ~2% toward the goal. I bet a very very small fraction of the motorcycling community is even aware of it. It is not important enough to anybody to extract DMV records to get a mailing list of motorcycle driver endorsements. Maybe we can help it along by posting to other forums, even non-MC forums if allowed...

I tried to spread the word and have received mostly negative feedback on the idea from motorcyclists. I'm worried that most will never know what they're missing and the rest won't miss what they have until it's gone.