WOW! I'm am siding with Dwight on this one. I'm a little freaked out right now. Give me a moment.
I too had the opportunity to enjoy the lane splitting privelage when I lived in Kalifornia. Never "FLEW" by anybody, just kind of cruise past them. Stoplights, that is the shiznizzle. I get away from all the whackos until the next light.
Comes down to a couple things in my opinion. Education, attitude and belief in entitlement. If folks are educated and adhere to safe practices it is very safe. The attitude comes from a lack of education and ties in to the belief in entitlement. Just because you and I might sit in the same traffic does not by any means entitle you to block my passage or endanger my life. In all reality if I am lane splitting, I am helping your under-educated, ticked off, self righteous bada$$ that deserves every advantage in the world get to where you are going by helping to relieve another footprint in the traffic pattern.
I grew up in Chicago. I have ridden through some pretty narrow places to park my bike in safe secure places, illegally filtered traffic here when I felt it was warranted, driven my bike down gangways between houses to park in the back yard, etc. ad nauseum. You know what, as long as I was paying proper attention, I never hit anything or was hit by anything on my bike.
Are there times I did hit or nick something. Of course I did. I'm Airguy, I am sometimes prone to doing the stupid things. End of the world; not by any means. But I am pretty typically very conscientious about things when I am out riding in heavy traffic so maneuvering my bike between 2 freaking cars is pretty dang easy. You hopefully have gained a 6th sense to help you identify the idiots on the road and watch out for them. They can still get ya', but that is the risk we take riding these crazy machines.
LANE SPLITTING FOR ALL!!!!
And that is all I have to say about that. (...for now)
