#lanesplitting

A week or two ago I had the pleasure of “testing” some new Dunlop tires up north of the L.A. sprawl – all up through recently rained-upon green backroads and citrus farms reeking of orange blossoms, around Fillmore and Santa Paula, looping around Lake Cachuma (filling back up with water!) and Ojai, back down along the ocean and through the Malibu canyons – all on a brand new KTM Super Duke GT, all under blue skies with temperatures hovering in crispy low 60s. Nearly as good a day on a motorcycle as you can have, really. When you’re working, anyway.

Today’s poll question actually comes from the KFBK News Radio out of Sacramento, California. In its unscientific and for entertainment purposes only poll the question poses whether the new lane splitting law is a good one. Should we be surprised to see that even in California – where lane splitting has been practiced for decades, and recently made into law – 65% of respondents at press time were against the law? We probably shouldn’t.

The November issue of Google’s Self-Driving Car Project Monthly Report was all about motorcyclists and how Google is tackling the difficult task of designing an autonomous vehicle that’s capable of safely sharing the road with smaller, lighter, faster accelerating and braking motorcycles. Lucky for us, a senior software engineer named Christian is involved with developing Google’s autonomous technology.

On Monday, August 1, 2016, California bill AB 51, the lane splitting bill, passed the full California State Senate in a 38-0 vote. AB 51 recently passed the Senate Transportation Committee in an 11-0 vote. The bill now returns to the California State Assembly for approval.

Anyone who has had the pleasure of filtering their way between lines of slower traffic can attest to the beauty of lane-splitting. Last year, we reported on California Assembly Bill 51, a bill attempting to codify lane-splitting into state law as opposed to keeping it in current unwritten enactment. Well, yesterday, another attempt at drawing attention to the idea of legal lane-splitting nationwide was started on the White House web site. While California motorcyclists have been lucky enough to have filtering between the lanes as one of their urban riding tools for years, we’d like to share it with the rest of the country since it’s impossible to export our year-round riding season. Think of this as a green initiative that can help the environment by freeing motorcycles from wasteful hours of idling away our planet’s precious bodily fluids while waiting for the cars in front of them to move. Think how much happier riders will be after their commute. Songs will spontaneously erupt in the workplace instead of mass shootings. The divorce rate will drop. That barking dog will be given the love it craves from its owner instead of a shout and a kick. Presidential elections will revolve around actual policy discussions instead of merely tapping into voter rage. All because of the breath of fresh air provided by the implementation of national lane-splitting.

Wait, what? It’s 2015 already? It feels like 2014 just started a couple of months ago. I guess it’s time to hang up another FastDates calendar my wife doesn’t approve of. (Seriously, love, I didn’t ask for it, they just sent it to me.)

Any California motorcyclist who’s suffered a lane-splitting accident in the last few months should consider consulting an attorney regarding any legal standing you may have to sue Mr. Kenneth Mandler. Why? Because it was him and his sanctimonious indignation that forced the CHP to retract its Lane-Splitting Guidelines – a safe riding tip sheet that may have helped riders avoid crashing or minimize potential injuries while lane-splitting had it been available.

A motojournalist’s life isn’t quite as glorious as it might seem. Endless hours chained to our computers, researching and cranking out words for your education, illumination and, hopefully, entertainment steal time away from what we most enjoy – riding motorcycles. A colleague of ours, Aaron Frank, succinctly described a motoojourno’s job thusly: “It’s the best job in the world two days a month.”

Earlier this year, after an Office of Traffic Safety (OTS) survey revealed that nearly half of California drivers were unaware that lane splitting is a legally tolerated practice in the Golden State, the California Highway Patrol (CHP) published Lane Splitting General Guidelines. Meant to bring awareness and promote safety among California’s motorists and motorcyclists, the publication also picked the scab off a festering controversy.