>Picture four lanes with four vehicles. You decide to go right down the middle. The outermost vehicles change, being replaced by larger vehicles, but the innermost vehicles haven't seen you.

This might be part of the disconnect here. You aren't "sitting" next to cars, you are passing them. If you aren't actively passing cars, you aren't splitting and should get in your own lane.

A rule of thumb is that you should be passing cars in about a second or so. So any "crunching" would have to happen within that second of time, or the motorcycle will be out in front by the time any contact would have been made.

But in reality that just doesn't happen. Mirrors stick out, and it is extremely rare for 2 cars to get close enough for their mirrors to touch, let alone have a mirror touch the other car.

But also cars just don't go from driving straight to instantly swerving toward another car in the next lane, they have "tells", they start drifting from the driver not paying attention, they act erratically, they have turn signals.

A safe lane splitting scenario that I do is like this.

* Cars are in both lanes, fairly close together so there is no room for people to try and shoot across to fill a gap in the other lane (if the cars are "staggered" like 2 sides of a zipper, that is a dangerous situation that I don't split in, because that is when people are likely to try and shoot into the next lane without any warning!)

* Cars are traveling about 15 to 30mph in both lanes, and there isn't a large speed differential between them (again, if one lane is going 15, and the other 30, people in the 15 lane are likely to try and shoot over to get in the "faster" lane, and sometimes people in the fast lane will try to shoot in to the slow lane so they can get off the next exit)

* I can see several car lengths ahead of me on my bike (bikes sit higher than cars, so you can often see much further ahead and can see over many cars. This also means that splitting is not okay on curves, hills, or when there are big trucks obscuring your view ahead, or if the drivers ahead are staggered in their lanes blocking a nice clean path)

In that situation, I go about 10-ish mph faster than the cars around me (a rule of thumb is you should be passing a car within a second, that equates to around a 10mph speed differential), and while doing this i'm looking at tail lights 3 or 4 cars ahead to see if anyone is stopping suddenly, turning, has a signal on, or is doing anything weird. if at any point things don't look good for splitting any more, I slowly drift back into my lane, slow down to match speed with that lane, and i'm no longer splitting.

If at any point things go really bad, say someone starts getting over toward me, or there is an accident ahead of me or next to me, I grab the brake and very quickly the bad stuff will pass me. And if it doesn't in time, then I'll get munched! That means yes you'll have to go through the insurance stuff for the scrapes and dents in the side of your car, and I'll probably have a broken ankle or a small neck injury, but i'll be alive. Contrast that with the alternative of not splitting where that same accident happens (because if you are drifting into another lane with another car in that lane and you don't see the biker in time, chances are you aren't going to see the car in time either and will smack into it), and when you slam on the breaks because of that, I run into the back of your car at 30mph and am in a LOT worse shape than i would have been in the splitting scenario.

But just like how we have lane markings for a reason, in many areas we also have laws that allow splitting for a reason, and you can't selectively pick and choose which laws you want to follow!

Your "safe lane splitting scenario" is compatible with my scenario, the one where you get squished flat. It's also not OK to snap off my mirror or gouge a groove in my paint.

I'm not "drifting into another lane". I'm using the space that is rightfully mine. No, I'm not going to signal. I'm not leaving my lane. The whole lane is mine; it is my safety margin.

If a truck on my right gets closer, then I will move left, and suddenly the space to the left of me becomes zero. If the vehicle on my left (not counting you) does likewise, then he isn't leaving you any room either. The gap closes to zero. You die.

You also aren't leaving room for actual emergencies, in which case I may swerve over the line. If you are in the proper position, there will be 4 to 6 feet of safety margin, or double that if you also swerve.

You claim that your behavior is safe, but there is a good reason that 98% of the states in the USA do not support it. You can lane split in Bangalore... and the insane road fatality rate tells the story of how well that works. There are more than 10 times as many deaths per vehicle in India as there are in the USA. Besides the hazard to yourself, you are causing distraction and stress to the other drivers. You may cause a crash and not even know it.

You responded to a very educational comment with this. You should apply your comments to the other user’s decision-making process. Either one or both of the cars in your example will be giving hints that the gap will close, let alone the trucks. If the motorcyclist is behind you, he will see that something’s wrong. If he’s starting to pass, he will brake. If he’s in the middle of the pass, he will clear before the gap closes. In very unusual circumstances, you will be forced into the other car by some sudden circumstances and the motorcyclist might get caught, but you should know from driving much of your life how likely this is, and some aggregated data is also available.

Your other example about arbitrarily using the edge of the lane would be even easier to detect using his framework.

I wouldn't call it educational. It was motivated denial.

It was also unfairly presuming that motorcyclists are more alert/careful/skilled than other drivers. This is clearly not the case.

Just a couple months ago, I suddenly had a 4-inch gap on either side. (confirmed by my son in the other front seat) Perhaps the road was badly designed or built, but that happens.

It's 20 feet from one end of my vehicle to the other. Escaping that isn't so easy.

What a disappointing thread. You two should try harder to understand what the other is saying, rather than just digging your heels in and pretending your words are the only ones in the conversation that matter.

The opportunity for a great discussion was there, because both of you have relevant experience and have thought carefully about the situation. Oh well. Instead you just spent paragraph after paragraph trying to set the boundaries of the discussion in a way that excludes the other.

I think the difference is cultural. I cannot accept lane splitting at high speeds (35mph+) as long as humans still have license to drive. Once we rescind all humans the license to drive, I'm OK with lane splitting.

Think of it this easy. In the four car scenario: how would a bike pass cars that are at the speed limit? By going over the speed limit. Lane splitting by humans (not talking about filtering) ought to be against the law.

Yes, in a scenario where I'm next to 2 cars on a highway and during that one second that i'm passing them they both immediately turn toward the inner edge of the lane with no warning and within a second are as close to that inner lane as they can each get, I will get hit.

But that scenario is insanely contrived, extremely unlikely, and damn near impossible to happen and also not result in any contact without the motorcycle (if you and another driver both move toward the "inner" edge of your lane at the same time as far as you both can without "leaving" your lane, you will collide).

>You also aren't leaving room for actual emergencies, in which case I may swerve over the line. If you are in the proper position, there will be 4 to 6 feet of safety margin

This brings up another cool point that is really counterintuitive at first! Motorcycles who aren't lane splitting shouldn't be in the center of the lane, it's one of the most dangerous areas for them to be! Generally they want to be on a side closest to other traffic, the rule of thumb is to "act like your bike is the left or right side of a car in that same lane".

When a bike is in the middle of a lane, people often try to merge into it and don't see them until it's too late. By riding the inside edge of the lane, you make yourself visible to drivers that would otherwise not be able to see you. The center of a lane also has the most gravel, oil, and other stuff on it. So no, you wouldn't have 4 to 6 feet of safety margin. Hell according to your logic that entire lane should be mine, so you have zero feet of safety margin.

>You claim that your behavior is safe, but there is a good reason that 98% of the states in the USA do not support it.

And 98% of the rest of the world does. Take Norway for example. Lane splitting is legal, and there are 3 deaths per 100k vehicles there (compared to 13 in the US, and 130 in India). And that's not just one country. All of Europe is safer to drive in (average of 19 deaths per 100k vehicles) than the US, and just about all of Europe allows lane splitting. Even the NHTSA says that lane splitting "slightly reduces" accidents.

This is 100% hoss. If it isn't straight out of some "how to lane split safely" guide, it should be. This is literally everything that's going on in my head when I'm riding through traffic.