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Glock4ever wrote:Don't see enough motorcycles on the road in Texas to buy the traffic argument.
It does work for traffic though in a place like Bangkok. Sometimes a normal taxi will take an hour in traffic but a motorcycle taxi will take 10 minutes splitting lanes.

Typical view of a Bangkok street.(not my photo)

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-s_wck7BMiM0/T ... affic1.jpg

Skiprr wrote:

Soccerdad1995 wrote:

bnc wrote:I can see opponents of this bill using the "blood in the streets" argument, which is as silly here as it is with gun laws. Splitting lanes when traffic is going 20mph or less and the bike is going no more than 5mph above traffic is perfectly safe and quite tame.

I doubt you will find too many people who disagree with the part that I bolded. The problem arises when irresponsible bikers lane split while travelling at speeds which are significantly greater than 5 mph over the speed of other traffic, as happens in places like California. I am envisioning somewhere like Houston on the Westpark Tollway where you have frequent elevation changes in the roadway and resulting blind spots just after each one. A motorcycle would have to be going at a pretty low speed to safely stop if a car was in the middle of two lanes just over that ridge (as frequently happens while trying to change lanes in stopped traffic). If bikers overall are going to be responsible with this, then I think it is fine. But I have personally seen a not insignificant number of very irresponsible bikers out there (including the moron who passed me on the right shoulder while I was going 75mph and then turned and pointed a camera inside my car).

Net-net, I would be in favor of this law with the restrictions noted (20 mph max speed, and a differential of 5 mph or less), and a presumption of liability on the biker who is doing this for any collisions with vehicles.

The problem I see? It will be extraordinarily difficult if not impossible to enforce the 20mph/5mph criteria. And therein lies the rub.

I will freely admit that I can't cite the California law at the time I lived there, but I have hundreds of thousands of miles logged on Southern California freeways and can state, without reservation, that speeds as low as 35mph routinely saw lane splitting, and that lane splitting at only 5mph above ambient traffic speeds would have been an absolute joke. At 20mph/5mph, the rider would have had other bikers on his tail leaning on their horns for him to speed up. And if he didn't speed up, the impatient rider would cut between the gap you left between you and the car in front of you in order to get an empty...er, semi-lane.

Soccerdad1995 wrote:

bnc wrote:As someone who got back into riding last spring, I'm about 100000000000% behind this bill! Some of the scariest times in my life have been at the tail end of backed up traffic hoping the guy behind me is paying attention. It would be awesome to no longer have to choose between safety and legality (I've always chosen legality).

I can see opponents of this bill using the "blood in the streets" argument, which is as silly here as it is with gun laws. Splitting lanes when traffic is going 20mph or less and the bike is going no more than 5mph above traffic is perfectly safe and quite tame.

I'll definitely be adding this to the list of bills to mention to my reps.



Charles, welcome back! Where do we sign up for the PSC Bikes & Bullets Club?

I doubt you will find too many people who disagree with the part that I bolded. The problem arises when irresponsible bikers lane split while travelling at speeds which are significantly greater than 5 mph over the speed of other traffic, as happens in places like California. I am envisioning somewhere like Houston on the Westpark Tollway where you have frequent elevation changes in the roadway and resulting blind spots just after each one. A motorcycle would have to be going at a pretty low speed to safely stop if a car was in the middle of two lanes just over that ridge (as frequently happens while trying to change lanes in stopped traffic). If bikers overall are going to be responsible with this, then I think it is fine. But I have personally seen a not insignificant number of very irresponsible bikers out there (including the moron who passed me on the right shoulder while I was going 75mph and then turned and pointed a camera inside my car).

Net-net, I would be in favor of this law with the restrictions noted (20 mph max speed, and a differential of 5 mph or less), and a presumption of liability on the biker who is doing this for any collisions with vehicles.

Now can we do something about the people who stand in between lanes of traffic at stoplights in Houston and don't bother to move after the light changes?

At 5 MPH you could easily stop if there was an issue. Where lane splitting is legal (CA and most of the rest of the world) and people know about it, many drivers move over just a bit to help the flow of bikes when they notice them.