Passes & Canyons Blog

This illustration from the Colorado State Patrol website shows enough space between cars for a while other car. How often is that the actual case? Like never?

I was headed over to see some friends on the other side of town and the only sensible way to get there was to go up I-25 and then west on I-70. You do what you’ve got to do.

Traffic was heavy on northbound I-25, and going slowly, and what a surprise to see this guy on a motorcycle come blasting past me, lane-splitting. As I think everyone knows by now, Colorado recently legalized lane-filtering, where it is legal to pass between vehicles as long as they are at a dead stop. Lane-splitting, where you pass between moving vehicles, remains illegal. But by now it’s no secret that some riders see the legalization of filtering as giving them license to split.

One thing I noticed about this guy once he was past me was that he had only one side bag, which I wonder if was because that made him that much narrower and thus able to split lanes more safely. Whatever. I’m pretty sure he knew what he was doing was not what the law made legal.

Shortly after this guy blasted past I saw another bike come on the highway and while this guy was not as aggressive about it, mostly sticking to weaving from one lane to another and back opportunistically, I did see him do a little splitting as well.

And then, on my way home, now southbound on I-25 with heavy traffic moving slowly once again, here comes another guy splitting lanes. I guess this is just how things are these days, the proverbial give them an inch and they take a mile approach.

Let me hasten to note that I have no personal objection to lane-splitting. I just hope these guys doing this don’t screw things up for the rest of us by annoying the legislators enough that they decline to renew the filtering law when it comes up for review in three years.

On a side note, I recently saw a couple articles about how lane-splitting is now going to be legal in Minnesota. It appears that their bill is more permissive than ours, allowing bikes to split at up to 25 miles an hour while going no more than 15 miles an hour faster than the cars they are passing. But what also struck me as interesting was mention in these articles that the bill was signed by Gov. Tim Walz. I’m pretty sure a little more than a month ago most of us would have read that article and not had any idea who was governor of Minnesota. And now all of a sudden it’s, “Oh yeah, that guy.”

And another side note: I was actively studying the space between vehicles available for a bike to pass through and it just reconfirms my certainty that the idea of someone filtering while staying entirely within the lane of the vehicle they are passing is utterly absurd. Not once did I see enough room even for a scooter to get past. You have got to ride the lane divider. Those illustrations on the Colorado State Patrol website are ridiculous in that they show cars vastly smaller in proportion to the lane width than in fact is real.

Biker Quote for Today

“I have discovered biker paradise. It is called the Great Smoky Mountains.” — Foster Kinn

No, you really are not required to filter past a car in front of you only on the left.

I’ve written about how, in my opinion, the information being put out by the Colorado State Patrol (CSP) about the newly legal (in Colorado) practice of lane-filtering is misleading and downright incorrect. So I went straight to the source.

I spoke with Sgt. Patrick Rice, who is the public information officer for CSP. Real nice guy and we had a good talk.

Right off the bat, Patrick acknowledged that the CSP statement that riders must pass the vehicles ahead of them on the left was off the mark. The legislation does not say that and if there is room for the rider to pass on the right it is perfectly legal. He explained that when CSP was considering how to get the information on this new practice out to the general public it was decided that it would be most easily understood if they put it in those terms. You or I may disagree with that decision but that’s what it’s all about.

OK, we got that cleared up.

Next I asked him about the CSP statement that the rider must pass the vehicle ahead while staying entirely within the lane they both share. I said that that is not how filtering takes place in the real world and I asked him to point out to me in the legislation where they said that came from. Patrick pointed me to Section 2 where it reads “NOTWITHSTANDING SUBSECTIONS (2) AND (3)(a) OF THIS SECTION, THE DRIVER OF A TWO-WHEELED MOTORCYCLE MAY OVERTAKE OR PASS ANOTHER MOTOR VEHICLE IN THE SAME LANE AS THE MOTORCYCLE IF:”

This is exactly the section I discussed previously saying that I believed they were misreading this bit of text. To quote myself, “Maybe whoever wrote this piece read it to mean you can pass another vehicle only if you stay in the same lane that it is in, when in fact it should be read that you can pass another vehicle THAT IS in the lane you are in but you don’t have to stay completely in that one lane in doing so. A significant difference of meaning. So the law could have been written a bit more clearly.”

I suggested this reading to Patrick and he agreed that it makes more sense but he said they spoke to the legislators who passed the bill and they agreed with the CSP interpretation. So that leaves them with implementing the law as it is written, not as it might have been better written or as common sense dictates.

That, of course, meant one thing to me: Time to contact the sponsors of the bill and ask them if that was truly their intent and interpretation or whether perhaps the folks at CSP misunderstood. I have reached out to but as yet have not heard back from Javier Mabrey, one of the sponsors.

In the meantime, Patrick tells me that of course patrol officers can and do exercise discretion in their enforcement practices, and he expects that if a rider is otherwise following protocol carefully but crosses over the lane divider while passing someone he does not expect that rider to be confronted. And he said this sort of issue is one of several that have already been raised and he expects that when the bill is being considered for sunsetting in three years–or sooner–it will be amended and these issues will be cleared up.

On a different note, Patrick did educate me on another aspect of the bill. There is a passage where it reads “SHALL NOT OVERTAKE OR PASS: (B) To THE RIGHT OF A VEHICLE IN THE FARTHEST RIGHT-HAND LANE IF THE HIGHWAY IS NOT LIMITED ACCESS.” What I had not understood about this is that it is saying that on city streets it is not permitted to filter on the right, even if you can stay entirely within the lane, because that could lead to a crash if the person you are passing is about to make a right turn on red. OK, that makes sense. Good to know.

Biker Quote for Today

“He loved talking to the mountains. He loved talking to the breeze. He loved to drift. And he loved to ride his motorcycle.” ? Avijeet Das

This CSP video actually shows a rider in the left lane passing with oncoming traffic on his left. But gosh, I haven’t seen many traffic lanes that were more than three times wider than the cars in the lane.

OK, right as I was finished writing this and about to schedule it to post in the morning my wife came to me and showed me a text she had just received from a friend saying she had just seen me on the news. As it says below, I had been told the piece with the interview I did would run on the 5 o’clock news but now it had run on the 9 o’clock news. I did not see it and have no idea what part of the interview they used. So much of what is below is out of date, but I have no idea what parts. If anyone saw the piece and can help me out I’d greatly appreciate it. Meanwhile, here’s what I had intended to post. Hey Channel 9, if you can enable me to see what you ran I’ll gladly take this post down and totally rewrite it.

I thought I really had a chance to set things right when a reporter from Denver’s Channel 9, contacted me to say he would like to talk to me about lane-filtering as it was about to go into effect. I welcomed the opportunity to speak to a larger audience to clear up the misconceptions being put out by the Colorado State Patrol (CSP) as to what lane-filtering is about. Oh silly me.

First the guy who contacted me failed to get back in touch when he said he would to set up an interview, and then about the time I figured he had just blown me off I got a text from another guy who he had apparently handed the thing to. I replied, we spoke, and we set a time for him to come to my house so we could speak.

Ethan turned out to be a super nice guy, a young kid doing an internship and just looking to get his career started. I told him I had been in the news business myself for many years and we had a nice chat about how things have changed.

I rolled one of my bikes out and he set up his gear and we basically chatted. I talked about how it’s mostly going to be the smaller bikes and scooters that do the majority of the filtering, not the big cruisers, and I also talked about how the information the Colorado State Patrol is putting out is just flat wrong. Other things, too.

In addition to the conversation, Ethan did a number of long still shots of my bike and gear, which I figured he would use with my voice playing over the image. When we were done he packed up and he promised to text me to tell me when the piece would run. Now he was heading back to the studio to do the editing and put the piece together. In the following text he said it would be on the 5 p.m. news.

Five o’clock came and I had the TV on set to Channel 9. The third or fourth item came on and it was about lane-filtering and I was nowhere to be seen. Or heard. All it was was another recital of what the CSP had put out, accompanied with a graphic video depicting the same thing as depicted on the CSP website. Which is to say, a motorcycle passing entirely within the same lane as the car it is passing.

If you ride you know this is absurd. As I told Ethan, and as any rider knows, lane-filtering or lane-sharing is done by going up the middle between two lines of cars. And you intentionally ride the lane divider line, you don’t stay entirely within the lane of the car you’re passing.

Now, if all drivers always kept their cars all the way to the right of their lane, then passing within the lane might be possible. Does that happen. Of course not. Drivers naturally try to stay pretty much in the center of their lane. But that opens up space to the right-hand car’s left side and the left-hand car’s right side. That’s where bikes go.

But apparently not according to CSP.

And I have read and re-read the legislation and nowhere in that bill does it say anything about the rider passing on the left. That would be stupid. If you were in the left lane, passing on the left would mean potentially encroaching on the oncoming traffic lane, and while you are allowed to filter only if the cars going your direction are completely stopped, those oncoming cars may not be stopped at all. Dangerous much?! No, you go up the middle between the two lanes of traffic going your direction, no matter whether that means you are passing on the left or right. People, let’s get some sanity going here!

So I texted Ethan and he said he had thought he would be doing the editing but then found that “some people at the desk had already done so.” They just wanted him to get the interview. Which they then totally ignored.

Now, Judy raised the valid point about, who are they going to believe, the official governmental source or some blogger? My reply was that if there is differing information it is their job to dig in and find out what the truth is. That’s what I would do when I was a reporter.

Anyway, not being the type of person to just let this die, my next move will be to contact the public information officer at CSP and talk directly to that person and see what comes of it. I also sent emails to the two main sponsors of the bill in the legislature pointing out to them the erroneous nature of the info the CSP is putting out. I had hoped to hear back from them by now but Judy pointed out that they’re not in session so who knows when they’ll see my emails. But I’ll try again to reach both of them.

Next update when there’s something new to tell you.

Biker Quote for Today

Riding my motorcycle is like painting memories on the road’s canvas.

Whoever wrote this piece just doesn’t understand.

I’ll take a break from recounting the latest OFMC trip today because this is timely and really flagrant.

Lane filtering becomes legal in Colorado this week, on August 7. As a surprise to no one, I picked up several articles addressing this change and “informing” the readers of what it means. I put “informing” in quotes because all three pieces I saw, including one from the Colorado State Patrol (CSP), were clearly written by someone who does not ride motorcycles and who fails to understand the entire procedure. More importantly, they were just flat wrong.

Because the other articles seem to have been written based on what CSP put out I’ll go right to the source.

“The rider must pass on the left and not enter the oncoming traffic lane.”

What’s wrong here? Picture this. You have two lanes of traffic going each way and you are a rider in the left lane. You “must pass on the left”? I don’t think so. That would have you partially encroaching on the oncoming lane of traffic, which is strictly prohibited. Your only choice is to pass between the two lanes of traffic going your direction, which in this case would mean passing on the right. Either that or else if you’re in the left lane you are not permitted to filter. I’m pretty sure that’s not what is intended.

What the law actually says is this: A PERSON OVERTAKING OR PASSING PURSUANT TO THIS SUBSECTION (3)(b) SHALL NOT OVERTAKE OR PASS:
(A) ON THE RIGHT SHOULDER;
(B) To THE RIGHT OF A VEHICLE IN THE FARTHEST RIGHT-HAND LANE IF THE HIGHWAY IS NOT LIMITED ACCESS
(C) IN A LANE OF TRAFFIC MOVING IN THE OPPOSITE DIRECTION.

So that pretty much stipulates that you have to filter between lanes going your direction.

The CSP piece also said this: “The lane must be wide enough to fit the vehicle and motorcycle while passing.”

Now, not very many lanes anywhere are wide enough to allow a car and a motorcycle to fit comfortably side by side. The motorcycle needs to ride down the stripe separating the lanes. The law states filtering is permitted if “THE DRIVER OF THE TWO-WHEELED MOTORCYCLE IS ON A ROAD WITH LANES WIDE ENOUGH TO PASS SAFELY.”

Notes the plural there: “lanes.” And nothing about staying in the same lane as the car you’re passing.

I think part of the confusion may come from the wording of the law where it says “THE DRIVER OF A TWO-WHEELED MOTORCYCLE MAY OVERTAKE OR
PASS ANOTHER MOTOR VEHICLE IN THE SAME LANE AS THE MOTORCYCLE IF . . .” Maybe whoever wrote this piece read it to mean you can pass another vehicle only if you stay in the same lane that it is in, when in fact it should be read that you can pass another vehicle THAT IS in the lane you are in but you don’t have to stay completely in that one lane in doing so. A significant difference of meaning. So the law could have been written a bit more clearly.

So anyway, reading through the law again I spotted one thing this time that I did not notice previously. This is item B in the list above. “SHALL NOT OVERTAKE OR PASS: (B) To THE RIGHT OF A VEHICLE IN THE FARTHEST RIGHT-HAND LANE IF THE HIGHWAY IS NOT LIMITED ACCESS.”

“If the highway is not limited access.” Does this mean that they are specifically allowing you to overtake or pass on the right of the vehicle in the farthest right lane if the highway IS limited access? As in, if you’re on the interstate you can pass on the shoulder? It had not been my understanding that that was the intention of the Legislature but that does seem to be the logical reading of that rule.

At the same time, it also says this: “(III) A PERSON OVERTAKING OR PASSING PURSUANT TO THIS SUBSECTION (3)(b) SHALL NOT OVERTAKE OR PASS: (A) ON THE RIGHT SHOULDER;”

This seems contradictory. If anyone can clarify this for me I would appreciate it.

I think there are some kinks here. I suspect that there are going to be some amendments needed. But get ready because filtering will be here this week.

Biker Quote for Today

I don’t love the people driving fast, that’s the reason why I overtake them.

Not apropos of anything, just kind of a cool shot.

Was it truly inevitable? The Colorado legislature this session passed a bill making it legal for motorcycles to filter to the front when traffic is at a standstill. Although passed and signed by the governor, lane filtering does not become legal in Colorado until August 7. But they’re doing it already.

You’ve probably seen it. And the thing is, it’s not just filtering. There are riders out there right now who are doing full-blown lane splitting even though that is not what has been legalized.

On Monday Judy and I were headed out of town to go spend a few days in the mountains. We were headed up US 285 near Conifer, a four-lane, divided highway stretch, and seemingly out of nowhere a guy on a sportbike blazed past us and proceeded to weave his way, lane-splitting, through the whole group of cars ahead of us. And he was immediately followed by two other guys doing the same.

Now, a couple things about these guys. First off, they were seriously geared up. These were not weekend bikers just running over to the bar. These were serious riders on serious sportbikes and just from the way they were riding I would not be surprised to find that they were Europeans. They didn’t look like guys just trying out this new thing, they looked like they knew exactly what they were doing.

And they were going fast. Within about a mile they were far out of sight up ahead of us. Did they even know about the change in Colorado law, or were they just riding that way because why not? We’ll never know.

But these were not the first lane-splitters I’ve seen, and I know you’ve probably seen it, too. At last month’s RMMRC meeting Roy said he had seen a guy blasting his way through traffic on Hampden. I saw someone lane splitting somewhere recently, though I don’t remember where. Lane filtering is not even legal yet and people are lane splitting. Wow.

Now, I have no problem with lane splitting. The fact is, most riders in Colorado are not even likely to filter because let’s face it, if you’re on a big Harley or some big BMW or Indian you aren’t going to have room to slip between cars, stopped or not. Heck, I slipped past a car stopped in a right turn lane one time on my Concours, which was a big bike, and my mirror clipped his. Oops. Not a good thing.

It’s only the sportbike crowd that is going to filter. Those bikes are narrow and can do it safely. And if they want to split as well, well, good luck if some cop sees you doing it. It might not be such a good idea. The point is, though, that splitting is not what was made legal, filtering is.

All I’m hoping is that these guys don’t flout the law so much that when it comes time in three years to review this lane-filtering law that the legislature reverses course. That would be very unfortunate. So maybe you guys ought to tone it down just a bit. Maybe?

Biker Quote for Today

I don’t need you, my bike is enough to drive me crazy.

The guy who smashed my car would now also be cited for using his cellphone while driving.

It’s not as good as it could have been but it’s better than nothing, I guess. On the final day of the latest legislative session the Colorado House and Senate worked out a compromise hands-free bill and passed it, sending it to the governor for his signature.

As passed in the Senate, SB 24-065, Mobile Electronic Devices & Motor Vehicle Driving, would have made holding your phone while driving a primary offense, meaning the police could stop you simply for violating that law. Instead, the House insisted that it be a secondary offense, meaning you can’t be stopped for it but if you are stopped for something else the officer can also charge you for this violation.

The reasoning, as I understand it, is that some legislators feared it could be used by the police to selectively profile drivers and choose to stop them or not based on things like ethnicity. Sadly, that sort of fear has had plenty of foundation in reality but honestly, if a cop wants to harass someone, if they can’t use this law they’ll just use a different one. Weakening this law will not have any effect on that at all. But it will make it harder to enforce this law.

Still, I can tell you what will happen, at least at times. Cops will see someone using their phone and they will dig as deep as they need to to come up with some other reason for stopping them, then “let them go this time” on the “offense” they stopped them for but cite them for the phone usage.

I know this will happen because it happened to me once in regard to driving without using a seat belt, which was and is still a secondary offense in Colorado. I was on I-225 going the same speed as the traffic around me but I did not have my seat belt fastened. The state patrol guy stopped me for “speeding.” But, being a nice guy (right!) he let me off on the speeding but did cite me for the seat belt.

Bottom line, though, what will happen as a result of this legislation? Will drivers finally start to realize they need to put their damn phones down and concentrate on the number one thing they are doing–driving! My guess is some will. Not all but some. And not as many as would have if it had been made a primary offense. We don’t want to reject what is good because it is not perfect. Any progress is still progress. But it could have been better.

Biker Quote for Today

Owning a motorcycle is like eating biscuits in church–many will judge you but secretly they all want to be you.

The Colorado Capitol Building, where it’s all happening.

I may well be updating this post right up until it gets posted but as I write this now on Sunday afternoon it appears the Legislature is in session and at work on the bill this moment. This bill being SB 24-065: Mobile Electronic Devices & Motor Vehicle Driving.

This morning I got an email from Stump, legislative liaison for ABATE of Colorado, reporting that it had been approved on second reading in the House. When I checked a short while ago it had come up on third reading and then when I came back to it just now it had been amended.

So now what I’m unclear on is whether this means it will need to go back to the Senate to be re-approved with the amendments. I think so. Does it go to a conference committee of the two houses to be reconciled and then need to be passed again by both houses? Is there time to get that done at this late moment in the session? I’m unclear.

What I am clear on is that my initial sense that this year is different, that this year the opposition to this bill has fallen away, was correct. After easily passing the Senate the bill came up in committee in the House and passed out of the House committee by an 11-0 vote. Now I see that on the House floor there have been several votes and the most recent vote was 55-6 in favor. This baby is going to pass! And the governor darn well better be planning to sign it. I can’t imagine he won’t.

Do we dare to think that by the time I click “Publish” on this thing tomorrow that it will be on its way to the governor? It might.

Update
OK, it’s Monday afternoon and the Senate voted not to concur with the House amendments. Before that vote I heard from Stump who said, “With 3 days left in the session and a ton of work to get done, it’s hard to say if there’s enough time to get SB24-065 passed the way we want it. We don’t like the latest amendments that were added, so we hope the Senate will reject them since the bill has to be reviewed by them and then send the bill to a conference committee. That all could happen in time as I saw a bill last week pass through a committee hearing, then through 2nd and 3rd reading in one day.”

Biker Quote for Today

Great memories happen when you don’t know where you’re going.

The hands-free bill moved another step closer to reality on Tuesday at this House committee hearing.

On Tuesday this week the Colorado House committee considering it approved by 11-0 the bill to make it illegal to be holding a cellphone or other mobile electronic device while driving. After a pass through the House Appropriations Committee it will go to the floor for second and third readings. There may or may not be amendments made at that time.

As I stated previously, there seems to have been a huge shift in general thinking about the use of electronics while driving, and that shift is against the practice. When a similar bill was under consideration in the previous legislative session it passed the Senate but failed in the House after much opposition was offered. This time around, of about three dozen witnesses speaking at the House Committee on Transportation, Housing & Local Government hearing, only one person offered any opposition.

That person was someone who raised the issue of possible discriminatory enforcement where minority members might be singled out by police officers more frequently than whites. While that concern was not pooh-poohed, several speakers offered information to show that such has not been the case in other states where similar laws have passed.

One of those speakers was Jennifer Smith, CEO and co-founder of StopDistractions.org, who, in her introduction, stated that unlike others speaking, “I am an expert.” She said that her organization had worked closely with members of various state Black caucuses to develop model legislation language that would prevent such discriminatory enforcement. Colorado’s bill, she said, uses that model language.

Numerous other speakers told numerous sad tales of their personal experiences–and often injuries–inflicted by distracted drivers. While I had testified in the Senate committee hearing, I did not feel it was necessary that I add my voice to the many in this case. Besides, the argument I was prepared to make was made by Scott O’Sullivan of RiderJustice.com. In the hearings in the last session one of the big arguments was that poor people would be disproportionately affected by having to pay the fines for violating a law against using your phone while driving. I would have argued–and Scott did–that there is no comparison between a poor person having to pay a $75 fine for doing something they easily could have chosen not to do and some other poor person, who they hit, being faced with the cost of having their car smashed or even their own selves badly injured. But nobody made that argument this time around, there was only the discriminatory enforcement argument.

I figured that the way this vote went would either bear out or refute my previous reading that a large change in public feeling in this matter had taken place over the last two years. My take seems to have been borne out. Among those testifying one theme emerged strongly and that was that people are tired of the delay in getting this law on the books. “How many times do we have to come here and tell you our stories” was the question asked again and again. And this time it passed unanimously.

Now we just have to wait to see what happens on the House floor. Unlike with the filtering bill, I have no doubt Gov. Polis will sign this one if it reaches his desk. It really does look like we’re going to make it over the finish line this time.

Biker Quote for Today

You might be a Yuppie biker if you paid for your new FXSTC in 24 months or less.