So, I was riding the other day, stuck in that lovely stop-and-go traffic, and I saw a couple of bikes carefully making their way between the rows of cars. It got me thinking, “Man, I wonder where that’s actually okay to do.” You hear stuff, you know, but I wanted to figure it out for myself.
My Little Research Dive
I figured it wasn’t something you could just guess. Laws are laws, right? So, I decided to do a bit of digging. Didn’t want to rely on hearsay. I just wanted to know, straight up, what the deal was across the US.
First thing I realized, and it makes sense, is that this whole thing is decided state by state. There’s no big federal rule saying “yes” or “no” to lane splitting or filtering, which is what they often call it when you’re moving between stopped or super slow cars.
What I Found Out
After poking around, I started to see a pattern. It’s not like it’s legal all over the place. Far from it, actually.
The one everyone kinda knows about is California. They’ve had it for a while, and it’s pretty well established there. That wasn’t a huge surprise.
But then I found a few others, which was interesting:
- Montana popped up. Apparently, they allow some form of it. That was new to me.
- Then there’s Arizona. They also have rules that let motorcycles filter through traffic under certain conditions.
- And Utah is on the list too, with their own specific guidelines on how it can be done.
So, that’s the list I ended up with: California, Montana, Arizona, and Utah. These are the places where you can, in some way, shape, or form, legally move between lanes of slow or stopped traffic. It’s not a long list, is it?
My Takeaway
The main thing I took away from this little exercise is that it’s super important to know the rules for the specific state you’re in. What’s fine in California or Utah could get you a ticket, or worse, somewhere else. It’s not something to mess around with.
For me, it was just good to get a clear picture. Now I know, and it wasn’t as complicated to find out as I thought it might be. Just took a little bit of looking. Always good to be informed, especially when you’re out on two wheels!
