Copyright © 2012 by Ralph Couey
Several
years ago, California enacted a law that legalized the motorcycle practice
called “lane splitting.” This involves
the rider easing through heavy traffic by utilizing the space between the
lanes, riding along the painted lane divider.
There are several very good reasons for this. First off, it’s a way to get at least some of
the traffic moving during those legendary Southern California traffic
jams. Secondly, the stop and go ooze is
hard enough on a car. A motorcycle is
far more prone to things like overheating engines and burned-out clutches. And nobody needs yet another disabled vehicle
on the roadway. It’s safer for the
rider, avoiding the very real possibility of becoming the meat in a
tractor-trailer sandwich. It thins out
the traffic herd and is better on the environment since there are fewer things
dirtier than an idling engine.
But
Southern Californians, normally a pretty laid-back group, decidedly don’t like
lane splitting.
A
recent survey conducted by the California Department of Transportation
(CalTrans) turned up some disturbing results.
Though
lane splitting has been legal for some time, that’s news to some 53% of
California drivers who thought the practice against the law. But even among drivers who do know the law,
it’s still highly unpopular. Motorcyclists, though, thoroughly love it.
But
buried in the statistics was a disturbing number. 7% of drivers admit to cutting off riders and
even opening their doors to try to block them.
This isn’t news to the two-wheeled set, all of whom have their private
stock of horror stories to relate.
Now,
7% doesn’t sound like much until you consider the larger picture.
The
number of cars and trucks using SoCal’s freeways during rush hour have been
estimated to be as high as 3.5 million. 7% of that number is around 245,000. That means that on a given day, there are
around a quarter-million motorists that admit to having assaulted a
motorcyclist.
Think
about those numbers during your next commute.
Even
though I’ve been riding for a little over 20 years, I’m not single-scoping this
issue. I can well understand the
frustration of being gridlocked twice a
day, only to see some dude on a bike zipping between cars, sure to get to his
destination long before we get to ours.
But I can also see this from the point of view of the rider.
Operating
a motorcycle is a far more physically demanding task than driving a car or
truck, especially in bad weather (this includes 100-degree summer days as
well). Stuck in a long line of cars, the
bike, never overly visible under regular conditions, becomes even harder to
detect, squeezed in between a menagerie of high-sided vehicles. There is danger from cars switching lanes
into what they thought was an empty space only to discover far too late that
the “occupied” sign is out. A rider is
exposed directly to exhaust fumes from all the vehicles around.
It
doesn’t help that a few of us do this lane-splitting thing way too fast. That’s arrogant riding and you practically
invite retaliation. I shouldn’t have to
remind anyone that these are stressful times, which some of us aren’t handling
all that well. Under those conditions,
it doesn’t take much to push someone over the edge into acts of aggression and
even violence.
The
bottom line is this. Lane splitting is
legal in California. If you’re a driver
who becomes consumed by jealousy and hatred when you see the bikes passing by,
then there’s nothing to prevent you from taking the Rider Safety Course
sponsored by the Motorcycle Safety Foundation (MSF), buying a bike of your own,
and joining in the general glee that turns a mere commute into a spiritual
adventure. In many other countries,
two-wheeled conveyances are the primary means of transportation, flitting in and
around vehicular traffic like flies around a herd of horses. Yet, they prove that it can be done safely
and sanely.
It
all boils down to respect. That rider
you see in traffic is really no different from you.
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