splitting lanes : Yamaha R6 Forum: R6MessageNet : YZF-R6 Forums

stevencand0 · 08-31-2005, 04:44 AM

i know the laws for lane splitting/sharing varies from state to state but what do you do when traffic's stopped at an intersection and you split up to the front and there is police in front? What about a police car being in front of the left turn lane and you wnat to split to get up front and turn left also? DO you go ahead of the cop car? thanks

sQwiReL · 08-31-2005, 07:52 AM

i would try to let the cop car go ahead of me. i dont like cops being behind me because they can pull you over, but if your behind them they cant pull you over.

deadman42069 · 08-31-2005, 09:24 AM

+1 on that for sure. i dont like pigs being behind me. if they end up behind me somehow ill pull off to a random gas station or something. i wouldnt worry about if yer sitting at an intersection and u and yer buddy are right next to each other in the same lane in front of or behind a cop. if he wanted to be a dick sure i suppose he could pull you over for it. but cmon. are the cops really that capable of being assholes?

jdoggg1 · 08-31-2005, 02:04 PM

I usually try to see if there's a cop at the front, and unless he's the first car at a light, I will usually split past him. If he's first, I wont split b/c I dont have plates/mirrors/blinkers so I will most likely get pulled over if one gets behind me

mizzzikey · 08-31-2005, 02:05 PM

Usually on turns i don't split lanes, I just wait until its my turn. But if I'm going straight and so is the cop, I don't mind splitting to the front. I just wave to them when I get there and usually they're cool about it.

CzarKat · 08-31-2005, 02:47 PM

...fact of the matter is, there is only one state (known to me) that allows Lane Splitting, which is California.

Otherwise, you're fucked... legally.

SDr6 · 08-31-2005, 03:36 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by stevencand0

i know the laws for lane splitting/sharing varies from state to state but what do you do when traffic's stopped at an intersection and you split up to the front and there is police in front? What about a police car being in front of the left turn lane and you wnat to split to get up front and turn left also? DO you go ahead of the cop car? thanks

What I like to do it ride up to the light doing a stoppie and when the light turns green I pull the front end up and pull down my pants while giving the bird

schmidtys311 · 08-31-2005, 05:31 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by CzarKat

...fact of the matter is, there is only one state (known to me) that allows Lane Splitting, which is California.

Otherwise, you're fucked... legally.

I believe that Massachusetts has been working on a law to allow motorcyclists to split and ride the shoulders if traffic is stopped or at less than 15mph. Don't know if it passed yet though.

deadman42069 · 08-31-2005, 05:41 PM

i never have done any lane splitting....i really just never thought about it. then again i live in an area where there isnt too much traffic. knowing my luck though ill try it once and get a ticket

jdoggg1 · 08-31-2005, 07:45 PM

CA is a little tricky.... we don't technically have the right to lane split as I understand it, we have the right to share lanes.. Meaning - If you're on the freeway doing 65 mph (the speed limit) you can share the lane with a car, where you get in trouble is when you start going faster than the car b/c you can get nailed 2-fold

1 for unsafe passing
1 for speeding

It's up to the officer to make the call, I think it's a grey area for lane splitting below 30mph due to the description of passing in certain cituations.

this is all out of my ass based on my experiences and foggy memory of the DMV motorcycle handbook

I Found this:

Is lane-splitting legal?
Here's the text (verbatim) from the CHP's site: "Lane splitting by motorcycles is permissible under California law but must done in a safe and prudent manner." The text used to also include "The motorcycle should be traveling no more than 10 mph faster than surrounding traffic (without exceeding the speed limit) and not come close enough to that traffic to cause a collision." but has since been removed. Perhaps they wanted to give cops more latitude to interpret what they thought was safe so they removed it.
Lane splitting on surface streets is probably not addressed in city or county laws so I would do this with caution, as individual cops will decide whether or not they like what they see.