Passes & Canyons Blog

We just spent five days in Barcelona (Spain) and as always, I observed the traffic scene–i.e., the two-wheeled type–closely. I’ll tell you two things: No non-California city in the US is ready for this scene, and it is then a good thing that no such city will soon be experiencing this.

Barcelona streets are packed with traffic so vehicles frequently move slowly and even when they move fast they are slow by our norms. And because traffic moves so slowly, the filtering and lane-splitting are constant.

We took a cab one day. The right-hand curb lanes on busy streets are reserved for buses and taxis so those types of vehicles can make better time. Of course motorcycles use that lane a lot. And apparently they’re allowed to, either officially or unofficially.

Let me make a side note here. In Europe they tend to use the word “motorbike” and that’s actually probably a better word for them. The highly dominant two-wheeler is the step-through scooter, like the Vespas of old. There are also real motorcycles but anything over 500cc is rare. Baggers are non-existent.

But you also have plenthy of the stand-up scooters that have become popular, plus lots of power-assisted bicycles–ebikes. And of course plain old people-powered bicycles and skateboards. All of these, for our purposes, can be grouped under the term “motorbikes.”

OK, back to the narrative. I was saying we took a cab.

The one problem with taking the right-hand cab and bus lane is that both of these conveyances are prone to making stops. And when they do you can end up sitting a while before they move again.

The obvious thing to do is go around them but that means merging into the next lane and on our cab ride, as the cab would start to insinuate its way in, the motorbikes behind the cab would dart into the opening and block the cab out of the space it had created. We missed getting through red light cycles a couple times for exactly that reason.

Our cab driver stayed totally cool, showing no frustration or aggravation. I’m sure because he deals with this all day every day. And he was vigilantly watchful for these scooters and all.

How do you suppose a typical American driver is likely to respond to something like this? Rhetorical question. We know the answer.

So no, no non-California city in the US is ready for this but it’s not going to happen anywhere any time soon. In Europe motorbikes are everywhere by the thousands. Until Americans take up two-wheeled travel in those kinds of numbers that kind of scene cannot develop. And hopefully, as it will happen gradually–if it ever does–we’ll all have time to adapt to it just as gradually. Until it feels normal.

How crazy would that be?

Biker Quote for Today

Why did the motorcycle stay at home? It was two-tired.

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

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.

While I don’t think anybody expects the lane splitting/filtering proposal currently in the Colorado legislature to pass, at least not this session, there continues to be discussion within the biker community of the issue. Here’s some of what is being said.

Not surprisingly, Stump, ABATE of Colorado’s legislative liaison, has been talking with legislators and others. This is from Stump:

One main concern is lane splitting with traffic moving at 40 mph. The sponsor’s main premise for lane splitting is that motorcyclists stuck in stop-and-go traffic when it’s 90+ degrees out, sitting on top of an engine making it a lot hotter, with an air cooled engine that isn’t getting any air, is both dangerous for the motorcyclist and bad for the motorcycle. But if traffic is moving at 40 mph, isn’t the rider and motorcycle getting air? I’m thinking it should be more like Utah and Arizona where traffic has to be stopped or at most traveling at 10 mph.

Another concern is that the bill specifies CSP and CDOT do the study. How about involving stakeholders such as motorcycle organizations, insurance companies, the trucking industry, and manufacturers. Virginia’s Lane filtering study invited 22 different organizations to participate and got a lot more pertinent data.

Also, the sponsor hasn’t explained the difference between lane splitting and filtering, which is something the legislators should know. Lane splitting is done primarily on freeways and filtering is done mainly on urban streets with speeds posted at less than 45 mph, filtering to the front of stopped traffic at traffic lights.

At my meeting with the bill sponsor this week, he informed me that these issues are going to be addressed. I don’t know if he plans to introduce an amendment about these concerns or just discuss them at 2nd reading. So, I’ve been addressing these concerns with 4 of my “friendly” legislators ensuring that these issues are addressed at 2nd reading, either with amendments or at least meaningful discussions.

Stump also sent around a photo with the the message, “Is this what Colorado is going to look like if lane splitting passes? (Note all the helmets too!)” That would be the photo above. And no, I seriously doubt this is what Colorado would look like. There are just a heck of a lot more motorcycle riders in Thailand than there will probably ever be here.

Deb had this to say:

Thanks for the update, Stump. Now I wonder if any/all of you saw the 9news report on this bill. The video shows a bike splitting between two cars on the highway while doing a wheelie.

Here’s the link to the video that showed yesterday. The part with the wheelie is about 1:57 in. Study may allow motorcycles to split lanes | 9news.com The reporter also made a short comment on the wheelie. The video this morning ran the part with the wheelie twice.

The segment really seems mostly pretty fair but the inclusion of that lane-splitter wheelying his way through traffic is very much over the top and does not strike me as a good journalistic thing to do. And guaranteed to make the general public strongly object to allowing this change.

So anyway, the thing is just hanging at this point. I’ll do an update when there is actual news.

Biker Quote for Today

Put vibrations in your life, marry a motorcycle rider.

So Rep. Ron Weinberg decided not to kill his bill calling for a study of lane-splitting in Colorado.

In a report on Local Today, Weinberg said “Motorcycling is a contentious issue . . . People are afraid there will be more fatalities. I certainly don’t want that, but all the more reason to study it.” He stated further that “There is no arrogance or selfishness here. If it really comes back and says it’s harming Coloradans’ lives, I’ll kill it myself.”

What exactly does the bill call for? Here’s the current text.

43-1-131. Motorcycle lane splitting study – report – repeal.
(1) THE DEPARTMENT, IN COLLABORATION WITH THE COLORADO STATE PATROL, SHALL STUDY THE FEASIBILITY OF PERMITTING MOTORCYCLES TO PASS OR OVERTAKE A MOTOR VEHICLE BY DRIVING ALONGSIDE THE MOTOR VEHICLE IN THE SAME LANE OR DRIVING BETWEEN ROWS OF STOPPED OR MOVING MOTOR VEHICLES, REFERRED TO IN THIS SECTION AS “LANE SPLITTING.” THE STUDY MUST, AT A MINIMUM:
(a) IDENTIFY AND ANALYZE THE BENEFITS AND DRAWBACKS OF PERMITTING MOTORCYCLE LANE SPLITTING; AND
(b) IDENTIFY POTENTIAL SAFETY ISSUES RELATED TO PERMITTING MOTORCYCLE LANE SPLITTING.
(2) NO LATER THAN DECEMBER 31, 2023, THE DEPARTMENT SHALL SUBMIT A REPORT ON THE STUDY TO THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES TRANSPORTATION, HOUSING, AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT COMMITTEE AND THE SENATE TRANSPORTATION AND ENERGY COMMITTEE, OR THEIR SUCCESSOR COMMITTEES.
24-33.5-204. Departmental cooperation – repeal. (3) (a) THE COLORADO STATE PATROL SHALL COLLABORATE WITH THE DEPARTMENT HB23-1059-2-
OF TRANSPORTATION ON THE MOTORCYCLE LANE SPLITTING FEASIBILITY STUDY DESCRIBED IN SECTION 43-1-131.

A fiscal note has been produced, specifying how much the proposal would cost and where the funding would come from–a requirement for all bills. The study is expected to cost $75,000 and the money would come from the state highway fund. No special appropriation would be needed.

So that’s where it sits right now. Stay tuned for future twists and turns.

Biker Quote for Today

Riding a motorcycle is exactly like riding a bicycle except you have power between your legs.

A bill calling for the Colorado Department of Transportation, in collaboration with the Colorado State Patrol, to study the concept of allowing lane-splitting has been introduced in the Colorado House (HOUSE BILL 23-1059).

Rep. Ron Weinberg, of Fort Collins, is the bill’s sponsor. The summary of the bill reads as follows:

Under current law, the driver of a motorcycle is prohibited from overtaking or passing a motor vehicle by driving in the same lane as the motor vehicle or between rows of motor vehicles, a practice known as “lane splitting.”
The bill requires the Colorado department of transportation, in collaboration with the Colorado state patrol, to conduct a feasibility study
of permitting motorcycle lane splitting and report the results of the study to the transportation committees of the house of representatives and the senate by December 31, 2023.

As yet there are no co-sponsors in the House and no one in the Senate has signed on to back it. It may go absolutely nowhere.

I don’t know about other motorcyclists and other motorcyclist organizations, but the thinking within ABATE of Colorado is decidedly mixed. ABATE’s legislative liaison, Stump, sent an email alerting us all to this bill and asking for our thoughts. I immediately replied that I back it strongly.

Running through responses that were sent “Reply All” we first had Larry saying “I do not like at all.”

Next, from Jim, was “This is a huge step toward eventually getting a bill to allow some form of lane filtering/splitting on Interstate highways in Colorado. Big thanks should go to Rep. Weinberg!!!”

Then, kind of in the middle but leaning against, was Mike: “I see nothing but bad PR for motorcyclist with the general driving population, because of the motorcyclist who abuse the privilege by not following the guide lines that allow them to perform lane splitting or filtering in a safe way. All motorcyclist represent all of us that ride, that is what has created profiling, because the general public lump us all together by the way we dress, the colors and patches we wear and the way we ride? I would love the opportunity to use lane splitting and or filtering, I just would not like the negative attitude toward motorcyclist that would be created by the abuse of the privilege.”

Dave entered the conversation pointing out that, “it’s a Study – no more than that at this point in time. This was going to come up in Colorado eventually and has been mentioned often over some years now; several other states have adopted lane splitting/filtering and more are likely considering it – it’s the trend. I suggest that ABATE not offer a formal position – pro or con – except to agree in principle to the study, state this organization’s concern for rider safety in the traffic patterns (keeping with our mission statement), and review/input on the study upon its’ completion. The State Patrol is likely to solicit ABATE’s point-of-view on the matter along the way, and should.”

There was more but you get the picture. But, as Dave said, it’s a study. So I agree, let’s at least have the study conducted. Then, as far as I’m concerned, I would be in favor of allowing lane-splitting or filtering. Riders who consider it too dangerous just don’t have to do it. But let those of us who are more comfortable with it do it. In ABATE especially we talk a lot about freedom to choose, in relation to wearing or not wearing a helmet. Well, how is this any different?

I don’t know about you but I’ve been in several countries in Europe where lane-splitting is absolutely the norm and you know what? It’s not mass slaughter on the roads. People do it all the time and everyone gets along fine. Sure there would be a period of adjustment while everyone in cars and on bikes gets familiar with it but then, just like so many other places in the world, it would become normal.

Biker Quote for Today

You will never suffer a punctured tire on the road until you leave the repair kit at home.

I was heading out last week on that RMMRC ride I mentioned and had only gotten as far as the collector street coming out of our neighborhood. I looked left and then pulled right, out onto Tamarac, and only seconds later a young guy on a sportbike blasted past me in the parking/bike lane on my right.

That definitely gave me a start and at first I thought I had looked but had not seen him coming along. But after zigging into the traffic lane he then zagged back into the bike lane to pass the car in front of me. So no, it probably wasn’t that I hadn’t seen him, he was probably behind the oncoming car I saw when I looked but in just a flash he had passed that guy and then was right up on me.

We continued up Tamarac and the car ahead of him stopped at a red light. The guy on the bike pulled alongside the car, using the bike lane, of course, looked both ways to see there was no cross traffic, and blasted on through the red. Another two blocks and I came up in the left-turn lane and while he sat at the red at Hampden I made my left turn. Just another of the countless examples I’ve observed where aggressive driving (or riding) gains you almost nothing.

So I headed west on Hampden and was approaching Broadway, but now, stopped two back at a red light, another young guy on another sportbike filtered his way to the front, pulling fully into the pedestrian crossing that everyone else had stopped short of. My immediate question was, is he going to blast through the red, too? He didn’t, but as soon as the light turned he screamed on ahead. And he kept doing that. Again it didn’t work very beneficially for him because by the time we got to where he turned left off Hampden I was still almost right up with him and I was just moving with traffic.

I also wrote not so long ago about coming south on Havana when a guy on a bike first went screaming past all the traffic ahead of him, using the center lane. At a red light with left-turn lanes in both directions he blasted on through the light using the turn lanes. Obviously, if anyone had been turning this would not have been possible but there weren’t and he did.

What’s with all this flagrant disregard of the traffic laws? It seems to have come on during the Covid lock-down. Back when the world had largely shut down and there was no traffic on the roads, the few people who were out found they could scream along at high speed and simply not worry about other traffic because there was no other traffic. Why wait at red lights for absolutely no other vehicles? And they liked that. Hey, who wouldn’t?

Now traffic is back to normal. But these guys are spoiled. They don’t want to give up their newfound freedom to scream down the road and ignore red lights. So they don’t.

That’s a little all right, until someone gets hurt. And really, do they think they’ll always be able to get away with it? I’m all in favor of flaunting the rules a bit as long as no innocent person pays a price. But when someone gets hurt it’s a completely different story. Maybe these guys ought to just accept that they had their moment but now that moment is past.

Biker Quote for Today

You know you’re a biker if You think black and orange would make nice house colors.

Arizona has joined the ranks of the few states where lane-splitting is legal–sort of.

The state legislature has passed, and the governor has signed, a bill legalizing lane-splitting under very specific conditions. The new law will go into effect in three months.

What the law allows is actually more along the lines of what is referred to as filtering. In full-on lane-splitting, such as in California, motorcycles can pass between cars while traffic is moving. Filtering generally refers to bikes moving to the front of the pack when traffic is stopped at a traffic light.

That’s actually what Arizona will allow. Traffic has to be at a dead stop at a red light. And bikes can only move between them to get to the front at a speed of less than 15 mph.

The key here is that statistics have shown that one of the most dangerous places a bike can be is between cars at a stop. If someone slams into the bike from behind, or into a car further back, setting in motion a chain reaction, the biker can be caught between the cars in front and in back of him/her, to catastrophic effect.

Filtering ahead gets you out of the trap. Someone could still run into the car two vehicles back but there would not be a car in front of you to get crushed against. (Though you could get shoved out into the intersection, into the cross traffic. I’d be willing to take that chance.)

I had the chance to do some filtering in California a few years ago and it worked really well. Out there the drivers are used to it so many of them deliberately leave space ahead of them at a light. A couple other riders and I were behind the first car at the light and there was room in front so after a couple hand signals to suggest we do it we nodded in agreement and pulled around. Others followed us. The light turned green and we sped off, with acceleration much greater than the typical car. We didn’t slow them down and we were quickly out in front with no traffic to be any kind of threat.

This seems like the sensible, safe sort of practice that even bikers who consider lane-splitting to be crazy can get behind. Kudos to Arizona for being sensible.

Biker Quote for Today