That’s actually mostly false. It wasn’t illegal, therefore it was legal.
Picking your nose isn’t explicitly legal either, but that doesn’t make it “not legal”.
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So if it was legal why was there a need to finally pass a law to allow lane splitting in California?
As I said in my post - the cops just didn’t enforce those who did lane split. I’m sure the CVC was vague enough to allow the lane splitting argument to be made without a specific law being passed.
I wonder what changed that spurred the CA Assembly to pass AB-51 in May.
They regulated it? Like government does? In the 1980s learning about lane sharing was part of the CA drivers education program. It was not “not legal” it was merely unregulated.
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An update that just happened recently…Per Jalopnic
"A law that would finally make lane-splitting in explicitly legal in California has been put on the back burner because the lawmakers behind the bill aren’t exactly sure how they would make it work.
Assembly Bill 51 was authored by Bill Quirk of Hayward and passed the state Assembly with bipartisan support. It was due to land in the Senate policy committee on July 17, but that’s not going to happen now.
“There were some concerns of how the bill would be implemented in real-life,” a Quirk spokeswoman told Lanesplitter, but wouldn’t elaborate on exactly what those implementation issues were.
California is the only state in the U.S. that doesn’t explicitly outlaw lane-splitting, and motorcyclist groups – including the AMA – have voiced concerns about regulating the practice.
Quirk’s office says the bill will be brought back later this year and discussions will continue this fall."
And depending on who you talk to nose-picking could be illegal (indecent, etc). Cops in NY can now choose not to arrest someone with a certain amount of weed. Does this make it legal because it’s not enforced?
Operation Righteous Vengeance went so much better inside the imaginary world behind his bulbous, vaguely piscid, eyes. The imaginary model proved to be of limited predictive value.
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If you understood it, it would not be genuine high grade emotional bullshit.
There is a purity and intensity to blind, inchoate, wholly incomprehensible, descent into rage that saner forms of anger are simply too cognitively involved to match; sometimes even going so far as to tend toward being value-rational. This guy is clearly hitting the former really, really, hard.
Oh man, lmao! What a phrase!
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All activity on the road fall under the applicable traffic enforcement acts. If an LEO witnesses lane-splitting and decides the action is unsafe they have discretionary tools.
Usually a clarification like this, making something explicitly legal, is to educate both the public and the LEO’s on a practice, how it shall be conducted safely and how if it is executed outside those parameters what shall be done about it.
You’re both correct in that because it was not expressly forbidden it was -not- illegal, not contrary to or forbidden by law. Thus if undertaken in a safe manner it could be considered a legal maneuver. Eye of the beholder applies, but if it ain’t illegal, in practice it’s legal until it isn’t.
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That could all be very true. Still not seeing how that isn’t the category of “emotional bullshit.” : )
No. This is completely false. Lane splitting is – even now – widely understood by riders and LEOs to be legal in California, specifically because it is not illegal. It has been discussed at length (and ad nauseum) in the riding community. There is no debate about this point among riders or LEOs.
The reasoning for the recent legislation is that many – riders and LEOs alike – are frustrated by the fact that we have no specific guidelines for the boundaries of lane splitting. There are some verbal guidelines that have been occasionally offered (such as no more than 15mph delta between bike and car) but these have not been written down anywhere and do not carry the force of law. Instead, we have only a single statement by the CHP on their website:
Lane-splitting is permissible if performed in a safe and prudent manner.
Unfortunately, that leaves a lot of room for interpretation, and it is at the LEOs discretion as to what constitutes “safe and prudent”. The goal of the legislation is to codify the generally accepted guidelines – to write down the rules that have been verbally offered – and give them the force of law.
Again, there is no debate on the point of legality among anyone in the community. It is legal, as long as it is done in a safe and prudent manner (whatever that means).
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Envy; it’s the driving force behind the vast majority of anti-bike hostility. “I paid $70,000 for this SUV! How dare that peon on a bike get through traffic more easily than I do?”
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They can sit in the same traffic as everyone else. There’s nothing that makes them a special little snowflake that they can avoid traffic.
Because it is a dick move.
Nope. Just because they’re on a smaller vehicle doesn’t mean that they get special treatment to bypass traffic.
Except that’s one less vehicle ahead of you and everyone else taking up space for your commute home when the bikes can lane split in slow to stopped traffic and at least for those of us who are reasonably safety minded being able to move in hot weather is a good thing as good gear while vented well, does not work so much when sitting still.
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And this says everything we need to know about you.
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“If I have to sit in traffic… SO DO YOU. Even if it doesn’t affect me in any way, at all, and actually reduces traffic because there are less vehicles on the road”.
I mean… right?
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Jealous, bro?
Actually, at least here in California, yes, it does.
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It seems to me motorcycle owners are similar to car owners. Most of them are responsible, but the people who do stupid and/or dangerous stuff makes everyone look bad.
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