Q: Mike Garcia of Homeland asked why motorcycle lane-splitting is legal in California but not in any other state in the country.
A: California is indeed the only state where motorcycle lane-splitting is legal. Why? California recognizes lane-splitting as a tool to decrease traffic congestion, and the volume of freeway traffic here is higher than in most other states. The reason: If you’re driving a motorcycle and lane-splitting, then your motorcycle isn’t occupying a vehicle space on the freeway because you’re driving between lanes or sharing a lane with another vehicle. In other words, allowing motorcycles to lane-split cuts down on the number of vehicles in a freeway lane, so there’s less traffic congestion for all drivers. In states with less freeway traffic, lane-splitting doesn’t need to be legal.
Proponents of legal lane-splitting also note a study conducted in 2015 by UC Berkeley that found lane-splitting isn’t as dangerous to motorcyclists as people think, under certain conditions. “An analysis conducted by researchers from UC Berkeley’s Safe Transportation Research and Education Center found that lane-splitting is relatively safe if done in traffic moving at 50 mph or less, and if motorcyclists do not exceed the speed of other vehicles by more than 15 mph,” reported the UC Berkeley News. The study also found that compared with other motorcyclists, those who lane-split were more likely to ride on weekdays and during commute hours, use better helmets, and drive slower, and they were less likely to have been drinking alcohol. So, those lane-splitting motorcyclists are generally the safer drivers among their peers.
With safety in mind, the California Highway Patrol wrote educational safety guidelines for lane-splitting after the passage of Assembly Bill 51, which became law on Jan. 1, 2017 and formally defined legal lane-splitting in California. Vehicle drivers should be aware that it’s illegal to intentionally block or impede a motorcyclist in any way that could injure the rider, and opening a vehicle door to impede a motorcyclist is illegal as well.
The CHP’s lane-splitting safety tips can be found on its website at https://www.chp.ca.gov/programs-services/programs/california-motorcyclist-safety.
