A recent yearlong study by the California Office of Traffic Safety has found motorcycle lane-splitting to be a safe practice on public roads. The study looked at collisions involving 7836 motorcyclists reported by 80 police departments between August 2012 and August 2013.
"What we learned is, if you lane-split in a safe or prudent manner, it is no more dangerous than motorcycling in any other circumstance," state spokesman Chris Cochran told the Sacramento Bee. "If you are speeding or have a wide speed differential (with other traffic), that is where the fatalities came about."
California is the only state that allows motorcyclists to ride between traffic lanes. They can legally do so at any time of day, anywhere, and at any speed, although the California Highway Patrol had recommended the practice only at speeds at 30 mph or below and only when there was a maximum speed difference of 10 mph between the bike and surrounding cars. According to the Bee, the CHP removed those posted recommendations last year when it became unclear if it was promoting illegal behavior.
The study shows lane-splitters, by and large, to be safer and more watchful than motorcyclists who don't weave through traffic. Lane-splitters were more likely to don full-face helmets (79 percent did, versus 64 percent for non-splitters), "notably less likely" to suffer head, torso, or fatal injuries, and less apt to be under the influence of alcohol.
At the same time, these motorcyclists were more than twice as likely to rear-end another vehicle. Riders who ignored the CHP's "safe and prudent" speed guidelines were more likely to sustain head injuries; those who followed the guidelines while splitting made up 6.3 percent of all recorded head injuries, while those who went excessively quick accounted for 20.5 percent. When Californian drivers were polled by the same state agency, 61 percent disapproved of lane-splitting, with 55 percent of them calling it "unsafe." Worse, nearly half of the 951 drivers surveyed thought lane-splitting was illegal or didn't know either way.
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But as avowed cagers who know what we're doing behind the wheel of a car, we have to ask: If California finds lane-splitting safe under certain circumstances, then why do its police ticket drivers for exceeding the speed limit when they're keeping their distance, maintaining their lane, and/or not behaving erratically? Why is it against the law for a careful driver paying strict attention to travel at, say, 80 mph on an uncrowded or clear highway, while it's OK for a careful motorcyclist to run between cars in traffic? We know, there's a lot more revenue in ticketing four-wheeled vehicles, high-speed accidents are many times more likely to be fatal than those at low-speed (regardless of vehicle type), and, frankly, almost any motorcycle can outrun a police cruiser if the rider is so inclined—but we'd love to have some benefit of the doubt, too.
from Car and Driver Blog http://ift.tt/nSHy27
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