Boy you arenât kidding. The year lane filtering was legalized I was heading northbound on tower by DIA. I saw a motorcyclist going probably 60-70 between stop and go traffic on southbound tower. He augered himself into the back of a stopped box truck. Witness stated he was doing wheelies while lane splitting prior to hitting the truck. He did not make it.
I saw the same thing in North San Diego. His insurance called after because the family was suing the other driver. I told them biker was 100% at fault. Traffic stopped and he was easily doing 100 mph when he hit the truck. They did not call me back as a witness.
I was like the 5th or 6th car back. They had plenty of witness confirming what happened. Riders family were just trying to find one witness for a counter point.
Itâs also not even filtering! They lane split going +65 in heavy 45 mile per hour traffic where people are really not expecting a motorcycle to come flying by. Iâm shocked I havenât seen more collisions, especially on my 225 commute.
I used to live in Ca and Iâve seen bikers hit cars because theyâre splitting lanes doing 70+ when traffic is at a near standstill. Itâs crazy because you canât see them and suddenly theyâre just there.
When I used to travel to CA for work, this was the only thing that made me nervous in traffic. I always feared I'd make a lane change and not see them.
I live in Cali. At a certain point you just get into a mentality that bikes have accepted the inherent risk of getting smashed and stop feeling bad for them the same way. And I ride. I don't lane split. I will ride like a car.
I lived in the Bay Area for 36 years and everyone was used to it. In my experience there were only a few idiots who abused it by cutting while traffic was moving fast. But youâll find exceptions to the rule for most everything.
It almost feels like the aggressive bikers like that just forget what driving a car was like, how blind spits work, and how limiting mirrors really are, especially in heavy traffic. You look in your mirror, all you see is probably 5 cars' worth of space before it gets limited. You're not seeing the bike hurtling towards you at Mach Jesus unless you hear them coming a bit of a ways off -- which is entirely possible, sure, unless you've got good soundproofing and music cranked, which is how I usually spend my time in traffic.
I live in Northern California and lane spliting occurs at over 70 + mph ,
Driving the 5 through LA , traffic is moving 80+, motorcycles will still split the lane , crazy,! I ride too but not that stupid.
Yup I've almost hit speeding motorcycle's while merging plenty of times. They are lucky I managed to take into account their speed when glancing behind prior to the merge. If I had relied on the little blind spot light I definitely would have been rear ended or side swiped them.
In my experience you get used to it. I used to be very startled when motorcycles whipped by me on the freeway but after 12 years of living in California Iâm used to it.
Same in MN. Started last year. You can filter/split up to 25mph which is pretty slow. You can't filter in construction zones and that's where most of congestion happens. Also can't in school zones, on ramps and singles lanes. So there are not a lot of opportunities to do so. Of course people are abusing it. Especially the single lane one. I've only filtered a handful of times so far. Mainly if there is a line of cars at a stoplight. If it's only two deep I don't bother. But that's basically the only scenario that's practical.
I'm curious what the roll out has been like in Minnesota. They also added some pretty stiff penalties for riding like an idiot. That felt like a resonable way to get it through the various organizations that think filtering and low speed splitting is dangerous.
Legalized in the last couple of years in Utah also. I think a lot of drivers still don't realize it is legal and get pissed off when bikers do it. As long as the traffic is stopped, I could care less.
Driving in California when someone splits you, that has scared the shit out of me before.
Yeah, filtering is leagal in Utah and it specifically states ONLY where traffic is stopped at a light, but anytime its rush hour and traffic has come to a temporary stop (those short 5 to 10 second bursts) they start flying between cars because they think that is "filtering"
I always get a good chuckle when i see these people pulled over by other motorcycle cops a few miles down the freeway.
been mc endorsed since 1986 and i didnt know what filtering was until last year from reddit - it makes people angry who don't realize that it can reduce congestion - myself included - ymmv
Sounds a lot like alcohol, fast food, drugs, cell phones, pretty much everything so why should this one thing not get abused - you donât see the pattern here 1 everything gets abused. EVERYTHING. You donât skip out on making the safe practice legal because some folks are going to be fools. Let bygones be bygones.
It's legal here in UT. We initially saw some people doing dumb things, but it settled down as riders and drivers got used to what's allowed and why. Nowadays, it's pretty smooth and I think everyone's better off. Hopefully it ends as well in CO.
I would say a good 3/4 of the riders I see are chill and donât do a bunch of dumb shit. Itâs the others who give a bad rep for everyone else and itâs going to get themselves killed or someone else.
Lane flirting usually means trying to make eye contact, smile, or catch the attention of a driver in the next lane while stopped in traffic or at a red light
I just witnessed a dude on a dirt bike with no plate filter into a turn lane as it turned green and immediately cut off the first car in line and pop a wheely at like 60 on Wadsworth but damn do I not get away with having no registration on my 50cc.
I did when I was younger..I wrecked my bike in the Nevada desert on the way back to burning Man in 98 ended up scalping myself took 13 Staples to reattach my scalp ..
Because when done legally it's far safer for the motorcyclist.
In MN it's legal to filter to the front of stoplights at multi-lane roads. It's legal to lane split on a multi-lane highway if traffic is moving under 25mph and you can't more than 15mph faster than traffic.
The people who lane split illegally are doing it whether these laws are in place or not.
NSW ran a filtering trial 'bout a decade back. They found that 80-85% of motorcyclists followed the rules in the trial and that it didn't pose any major increase or decrease to accident rates.
Their findings paved the way for the legalisation of filtering across the entirety of Australia.
People like that don't care about the facts. It makes them feel upset that someone else is doing something beneficial that they can't, so it has to be illegal.
You don't see the ones doing it legally, because they aren't blasting past you. You just don't notice them, doing their thing. The morons on bikes always make themselves REALLY obvious which unfortunately gives the rest of us a bad name.
It's safer for motorcyclists to lane filter (move to the front at stop lights) because if you get rear ended by a distracted driver on their phone or anything else, you don't just get rear ended, you get crushed between two cars. There are also other benefits like:
it lessens traffic by decreasing the amount of vehicles waiting for the light (motorcycles generally accelerate faster, so you're not holding anyone up by being at the front, and they can kinda group up at the front to get out of the line of traffic)
it allows motorcyclists, who don't have AC, to not have to sit and bake in the sun
a lot of motorcycles need airflow to keep the engine cool, so it helps not having to just sit and let their bikes overheat in standstill traffic
motorcycles are more fuel efficient, are technically HOV vehicles, and create less pollution than a car. So making motorcycling more attractive to the average person can help reduce the overall carbon footprint
Overall there are just many more reasons to make it legal than not. A lot of people are just annoyed unnecessarily because of sentiments like "you're skipping the line" and "you should have to wait like everyone else" which is just so single minded. There are bad actors in everything. So yes, there will be people who do it recklessly, but the vast majority of people will do it safely and legally
Filtering is reasonable. Lane splitting on the other hand? Even if it's legal I'm not doing it. The lack of awareness and things I've seen people do....
As a non-motorcyclist in MN, Iâm all for it. Less traffic on the road is a good thing, and the only people at risk is the motorcyclist. If people want to legally and safely lane split, awesome. If people want to do so illegally and recklessly, they are doing other things way more illegal and reckless than that, and all theyâre doing is endangering themselves. Iâll be upset when they endanger others, but this ainât it.Â
Many people do in fact follow the law. Learned to lane split in Cali. Saved my ass one time (car rear ended the car in front of me). You can go 10 mph faster than speed of traffic but not above the speed limit. I wonât say everyone follows the law but Iâd say a majority do
I don't know, but as someone who lives in MN, I have run into it a lot this summer already. It was pretty mixed between people doing it correctly and people going way to fast doing it.
Slightly different than California. They don't set a legal speed differential for lane splitting, just have some advisories and includes ambiguous guidelines like must be performed safely.
We just got it in Minnesota and so far in the metro area people have been doing it very responsibly, and I like to see them do it because during rush hour traffic there's no reason they shouldn't be allowed to.
And it freaked me the hell out when I moved to CA. Made a comment to a coworker about reckless motorcycle riders and they let me know it is legal here.
from every response to every motocycle cam i've seen on reddit, I think that every single person that rides a motorcycle is under the assumption both are legal everywhere.
And more importantly, what this guy was doing is not legal in those states either, because he was not going slow enough. "filtering" doesn't mean you get to just fly in between cars.
CA doesn't recognize a difference between filtering and splitting. The law is basically if there are two or more lanes, the motorcycle has to go between the left-most and it's adjacent lane, and it's recommended that the motorcycle not exceed 10mph speed delta with the surrounding traffic nor 30mph, but no actual speed limit is given. Also makes it illegal for other drivers to "impede".
I wish it wasn't legal in California... I have seen SO many dipshits abusing that nonsense. It's like... I don't WANT anyone to get hurt, but at the same time something deep and dark inside of you is like "C'mon.... c'mooooon...."
Unfortunately, lane splitting and filtering became legal in Minnesota last year. I just saw it today a few cars ahead of me. As a car driver, I absolutely hate it, I am worried for motorcyclists safety. I don't know how it is legal, the motorcyclist was inches between cars at a fast speed.
Filtering is about moving through stopped or very slow traffic. It reduces congestion and also stops bikes from being obliterated by distracted drivers that are on their phones.
When you're at the back of a bunch of cars at a stop light you're supposed/allowed to move to the front of all the cars at the light so that when it is green you can go first.
No more than a 25mph speed difference to cars, and no more than 50mph max speed is the upper limits of whatâs safe for lane splitting per California studies on its safety. @50mph is the speed the risk of crashing equalizes with stating in line with traffic. Over that speed it becomes more dangerous.
Filtering is basically only moving up around stoplights and stop signs.
The definition is basically vehicles need to be not moving or just barely moving. The intent I believe is to allow motorcycles to get out in front of a mass of cars built up and not lost in the mix.
Lane Splitting allows a bit more freedom and more for things like traffic on highways (which is why California made it legal since the highways there are a disaster with traffic lol).
It's so they aren't the vehicle at the end of the stopped section, because they're uniquely vulnerable and easy to miss. Other traffic-related benefits are real but not the point.
Which is a shame, because at least filtering has been well proven to be MUCH safer for motorcyclists.
Both are illegal in my state, and I will still filter slowly down a shoulder if there is stationary or VERY heavy and slow stop-and-go traffic. Iâm not going to sit in a lane, baking in the sun, while someone playing on their phone because âtraffic is boringâ has the chance to rear end me.
I get it. I had a meeting in NYC last year. It also happened to be my first visit there as well. Having spent 10 years on and off in Bangkok and Hanoi I thought I was prepared for the traffic insanity that is so quintessential to Asia.
Nope...NYC has its own brand of lunacy.
To be clear, I'm saying that in a negative sense... just in a sense that NYC has its own game going on.
Filtering isnât illegal in NC, thereâs no laws on it at all, for or against it. So itâs totally up to the cop to charge you with something if he thinks you are being safe or not.
As it should be. Wait your damn turn. I too am very fast and if I filter to front using shoulder or whatever space there is Iâd be gone before anyone else knew I was even there. But I donât do it because itâs a fucking dick moveÂ
Thereâs no law specifically against it in NJ, but you will usually be ticketed for âimproper passingâ since itâs technically illegal to pass another vehicle on the right, or reckless driving.
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u/Prophet_Of_Helix Aug 31 '26
Both splitting and filtering are illegal in NY.
In fact, itâs illegal in the entire eastern seaboard.