Passes & Canyons Blog

Filtering, or lane-splitting, in Paris, where it goes on constantly.

I was down at the Capitol building today and met Rep. Gordon Klingenschmitt (R), from the Colorado Springs area, who is introducing a bill to allow lane-splitting by motorcyclists in Colorado. So far he has one Democratic co-sponsor in the House (Steve Lebsock) and a Republican co-sponsor in the Senate (John Cooke).

It is entitled, “A bill for an act concerning an exception to the prohibition against driving a motorcycle between rows of motor vehicles in the same lane.” Here is the bill summary.

Currently the driver of a motorcycle is prohibited from driving between rows of motor vehicles. The bill allows motorcycles to drive between rows of motor vehicles when traffic is moving at less than five miles per hour if:

• The motor vehicles that the motorcycle is driving between are traveling in the same direction as and slower than the motorcycle;
• The motorcycle is driven no faster than 15 miles per hour; and
• The motorcycle does not exceed by 10 miles per hour the speed of traffic the motorcycle is passing.

Rep. Klingenschmitt is taking an interesting tack in promoting this bill. He has put together information pointing out that in the California bill explicitly allowing lane-splitting the Democrats voted 90 percent in favor of it and 67 percent of the Republicans voted for it.

“So it’s really a Democrat bill,” he said. So Democrats in Colorado ought to support him on this. Will they? That’s a very good question. We’ll see. But if you favor lane-splitting you really ought to let your elected representatives know that.

The materials Klingenschmitt was passing around made the point that lane-splitting is supported by the American Motorcyclist Association and the Motorcycle Industry Council. Locally it also has the support of the Powersports Dealers Association of Colorado and the Colorado Confederation of Clubs. ABATE has not yet voiced its support but I know that group will also be backing this piece of legislation.

I realize that there are some motorcyclists who oppose lane-splitting because they consider it too dangerous. Nevermind that it is practiced safely in California and in much of the rest of the world. I would simply ask those who do oppose it to keep in mind that they are not required to do it; let’s just not oppose it for those who do wish to do it. I know I’ll only do it if I am convinced I can do so safely. Nobody values my skin more than I do.

The legislative session is just getting started. There could be some interesting things going on down there this year. I’ll be paying attention and will let you know what’s happening.

Biker Quote for Today

If and whenever you begin risking your life by assuming a driver will do the right thing, you should quit riding motorcycles. — Nick Ienatsch

Lane-splitting in Paris.

Maybe it’s like gay marriage. Maybe it’s like legal marijuana. Maybe lane-splitting is riding a new wave of public acceptability and is something we’ll soon see all over.

What? Why would I say something like that? Right now the only state in the U.S. that allows motorcyclists to filter between cars that are stopped are plodding in traffic jams is California. Where’s the wave?

How about Washington. Oregon. Tennessee.

I get emails from the American Motorcyclist Association whenever they have news they want to pass along and I was recently interested to receive one that was titled, “American Motorcyclist Association supports lane-splitting legislation in Tennessee.”

That was on a Friday.

The following Tuesday there was another email in my inbox with the title, “American Motorcyclist Association supports lane-splitting legislation in Oregon.” Not only that, that same day there was a second email in my inbox with the title, “American Motorcyclist Association supports lane-splitting legislation in Washington.”

Holy smoke! It’s looking like a movement!

Of course, if history is any predictor, all of these bills will fail. In fact, I’d bet on it. But I’m also willing to bet that within 10 years California will not be alone, and once that dam starts to give way there won’t be anything that can hold it back.

Sort of like gay marriage and legal marijuana. Those waves took years to build up but gay marriage is sweeping across the country and legal marijuana is just getting started, but with a vengeance. I don’t care what you think about either of those movements, they’re happening. Their time has come. And just maybe lane-splitting is not far behind.

I personally support lane-splitting. I’ve ridden in California and I’ve traveled to a number of countries around the world. The U.S. is one of the few where lane-splitting is not simply the norm. That photo above is something I shot in Paris. You could stand at a street corner and watch it happen again and again: The light would turn red and cars would stop. Then a motorcycle or scooter would come between the cars and take a place in front of the cars. Then more bikes and scooters would join the group. Finally the light would turn green and the two-wheelers would blast forward, leaving the four-wheelers in the dust. And then the light would turn red and the whole scene would play itself out once more.

Nobody got hurt, nobody was in any danger, everybody considered it to be perfectly normal. In the meantime, each of those scooters or motorcycles represented at least part of one car that was not on the road adding to what was already a significant traffic jam. Those drivers were benefiting from the lane-splitting.

Of course the bikers were benefiting more. They got where they were going in probably half the time it would have taken them in a car. At a significantly lower cost. And they were on bikes, for pete’s sake. What’s not to like about that?

Some day these benighted states of America may join the rest of the world. The encouraging thought is that it may come sooner than we expected.

Biker Quote for Today

Born to ride; forced to work.

There's a reason this scene is common in Rome.

We were just in San Francisco for a few days and it was interesting how these things work: We didn’t see one single Harley or big motorcycle in the city. We did, however, see plenty of small bikes and a ton of scooters.

It’s pretty much that way in Rome and Paris. We’ve been both places in recent years and far more than San Francisco, those cities are chock full of small bikes and scooters. San Francisco is nothing compared to them.

It makes perfect sense. Lane splitting is legal in all three places but you just can’t lane-split with a bike the size of a small car. While San Francisco has a lot of sport bikes and dual sports, the two European cities are awash in scooters. They’re cheap to operate, you can park them anywhere, you can slip between the cars to filter to the front–it’s perfect. If I lived in any of these cities the scooter would be my first choice for transportation. For the life of me, I can’t understand why–and how–anyone drives a car in Rome. That city is impossible.

But I never thought there would be no Harleys at all in San Francisco. I mean, of course there must be some–we just didn’t see any. Not even a Sportster. But as soon as we crossed the bay and got into Oakland there they were, plenty of them. And up in Marin County, north of the city across the Golden Gate, there were plenty of hogs. Just absolutely none in the city. You better believe there’s a reason for that.

Biker Quote for Today

Death is more universal than life; everyone dies but not everyone lives.

It’s 2011 and motorcyclists in Arizona are not legally permitted to lane-split. That’s only news because the legislature was in favor of allowing a test. The governor, however, had other ideas, and vetoed the legislation.

In Oregon it looks like it might be tried. The Governor’s Advisory Board on Motorcycle Safety held a public meeting on Nov. 19, 2010, and the hall was packed with motorcyclists speaking in favor. It’s up to the legislature now.

Lane-splitting, for anyone who doesn’t know, is when motorcycles ride up the middle between cars in two lanes. This usually only occurs in extremely slow-moving or completely stopped traffic. Except in France, of course. When my wife and I were in Paris some years ago we were amazed to see motorcyclists zipping not just up the middle but down the shoulder, along the dividers separating oncoming traffic, and all of this with traffic moving at full speed.

It was in the heart of Paris, though, where you could really see the sense of the idea. Every time a light turned red and traffic stopped, small motorcycles and scooters filtered through to the front and as soon as the light went green they were off! With quicker acceleration than cars, the two-wheelers were gone by the time the cars started to move and the cars just moseyed on their way. Riders in California, the only U.S. state where splitting is allowed, will tell you they cut half their commute time in that way. Each one of them also represents a car that is not on the highway creating even more congestion and smog.

I did have the opportunity to split when I was in California in October on the EagleRider media tour. On our last day we had come around the San Francisco Bay on the east in order to enter the city across the Golden Gate Bridge. We were making our way through Sausalito on city streets and cars were inevitably mixing in between our bikes. At a stoplight, I was the first of several riders behind a car, with more of our group in front of the car. The driver had left space ahead of her.

I turned to the guy to my left and motioned for him that we go around the car. He nodded and we did. Presto! A few more of our group were able to come around as well, the light turned green, and our partially reunited group took off.

Who knows when lane-splitting will come to any other states. California has been alone in this for a long time now. But maybe, if they give it a try in Oregon and it works out well, the dam may start to crumble.

Recent from National Motorcycle Examiner
Cyclepedia.com may be the wrenching motorcyclist’s best friend

Biker Quote for Today

It’s not a real sport unless you can die from massive internal injuries.

Of course you assume that people do some things differently in other countries but it can surprise you when you see just what it is they do differently, and how it’s different. We experienced that a number of times in our recent two-week trip to France, Belgium, and the Netherlands.

The one theme that seemed to run along with each of these realizations was the thought that “Gosh that makes a lot of sense. Too bad they would never allow that in the U.S.”

Take lane-splitting, for instance. Lane-splitting is where scooters and motorcycles slip past slow-moving or stopped cars, running down the dividers between the lanes of traffic. While it has been officially endorsed and declared legal in California, most other states forbid it or are silent on the subject.

But have you ever seen it in action? Our best chance to observe it was in Paris, where two-wheelers, primarily scooters, abound by the thousands. First the light would turn red and vehicles would begin to stop. Then a scooter would come up and pull right down the middle to the front. The longer the red the more scooters would line up between lanes, and at the turn of the green they would sprint forward leaving the cars behind and racing in a pack on down the street.

Of course there are several reasons why lane-splitting might not work as well in this country as it does in Europe. For one thing, it puts more of a burden on the drivers of all vehicles to pay attention and look out for other vehicles. It would also require a recognition by the drivers of the big behemoths that smaller vehicles have their right to a place on the road as well. Pretty unthinkable, both of those.

But it’s working in California and if it can work in that car-crazed state you would think it could work anywhere. All it would take is some open-mindedness in our legislatures. I mean, think of the benefits: Commuters on two wheels burn less gas, cause less pollution, cause less congestion, and get to work faster. The more these benefits grow, the more people will want to enjoy them, so the more will ride rather than drive. It becomes a virtuous circle, the opposite of a vicious circle.

With gas at $4 now and likely to keep going higher the time to try to change some laws is now. Write your legislator. Let’s get a movement started across the country!

Biker Quote for Today

There are two types of people in this world, people who ride motorcycles and people who wish they could ride motorcycles.