Lane splitting: It should be legal everywhere in North America, not just California, but that would assume the world made sense.
But the riding technique is valid in some places, although we’re not sure about Australia, where it appears this YouTube clip was filmed. That’s OK – we won’t tell on him, if you don’t. Check the video out – he shares some techniques and some safety tips, some probably learned the hard way.
Didn’t learn a damn thing about splitting from that video. I learned the rider doesn’t do shoulder checks.
He also seems to ride in the bicycling lane. Â Maybe that’s permitted down-under?
I don’t consider all of what he did lane spliting. If theres enough room to ride in a lane full of parked cars without crossing over the line, I’ve done it fairly often. Sometimes even in view of police, and I’ve never been givien as much as a dirty look for it.
Filtering alone would half my drive home…
Splitting would just get me away from Officer Friendly trying to do his duty by putting the big bad (too quiet and quick) bandit on notice… or on the back of a tow truck….
Too many sandwich eatin’, cellphone gabbing, gum chewing, cigarette smoking, stereo fackin’, scared shitless psychopaths out there with the keys to their freedom… Â Now if they only paid attention and had half a clue.
It all depends on the education or acceptance of the cagers as to whether or not lane splitting is a safe practice.
To me Lane Splitting is when the vehicles are all moving, Filtering is when the vehicles are stopped and you are moving to the front. To me, filtering is a much safer practice than splitting…but that is mostly because the cagers here (Alberta, Canada) have a “Me First” attitude and will aggressively push their point…it’s not too often that a bike is holding up a line of traffic from a stop, so I think the filtering should be legalized…but lane splitting would take some time to adopt to our roads.
And for those that think that bikes would be given a different set of rules and that it isn’t fair…get a bike and join us…you will be surprised how much you enjoy your commute to work on a bike, instead of being stuck in a “cage”!!
Just my two cents…
Later.
My retort for the “it isn’t fair” argument is to suggest that when we’re stuck in traffic and it’s raining, why not get out of your car and get wet with me?
Cars has some advantages and bikes have some advantages, that’s the point.
I’ve actually had a family in a miniVan ask if I wanted to sit in their van while we were stopped in a construction line up waiting for a pilot truck…but since I had been riding in the rain for a while and was totally soaked already, I declined…but it sure was a nice offer…
most cagers just point and laugh…little do they know that even riding in the rain is more fun than a cage!!
Later.
Beats sittin’behind a smoke belching vehicle..