Scott - widely renowned as the earlier liquid cooled motorcycles - 1908.
http://www.scottownersclub.org/scott_motorcycle_history.htm
I once owned a Scott Flying Squirrel. awesome bike.
It only works like a zipper if thereâs traffic movement. In gridlock, maybe 1 in 200 or 300 people are willing to let those busses merge right from the end of the the diamond lane, into the left lane of traffic. I try to let busses in, but people get really mad, really quick when they notice Iâm not moving into the bus-sized hole Iâm purposely making so the bus can fit into traffic.
If traffic wasnât constant gridlock then the busses might actually have a chance at merging on their own, instead of sitting at the end of the diamond lane for half an hour while the solid wall of traffic creeps by at 5mph.
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Clearly the solution is to get rid of buses!
I just try to avoid the I-5 at all times. Better views from the gridlock on the viaduct anyway 
Until it falls down.
I always seem to be going the wrong way for the express lanes on the 5, anyway.
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I have no issues with lane splitting during heavy congested traffic. As stated above by another poster it is intended to help alleviate some of the congestion by allowing the cyclists to continue moving along. Given the shear volume of cyclists in CA, it makes sense and does work.
The danger is of course lane changes by drivers who are not necessarily as cognizant of motorcyclists as they should be.
In anything other than stop and go traffic I am NOT an advocate of lane splitting in any way. I also think we need better lights and warning systems on bikes, no matter how uncool they may seem to some riders.
And I post this as a licensed rider for the past 20 years.
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The views from I5 southbound gridlock ainât so bad. You can see Lake Union, the Space Noodle, Mt. Rainier on a clear day, the UW.
But yeah, the express lanes⌠I wonder how much they actually help⌠It seems to me like everyone expects them to be open going southbound at 4 in the afternoon, but then are surprised when the onramps are closed and go âoh shit I gotta merge! I thought the lightboards were just kidding!â
And riding without a helmet can be safe⌠until it isnât.
Ride your bike like youâd drive a car. No two-abreast crap, no following friends through red lights, no parking on the sidewalk, no tweaking your muffler so itâs as loud as humanly possible. Basically, donât be a dick.
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Merging at the obstruction point is the preferred method, and we really need to get past thinking of it as rude. From the Minnesota DOT site (http://www.dot.state.mn.us/zippermerge/):
Benefits
Reduces differences in speeds between two lanes
Reduces the overall length of traffic backup by as much as 40 percent
Reduces congestion on freeway interchanges
Creates a sense of fairness and equity that all lanes are moving at the same rate
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Itâs been done. They went to PMITA jail.
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riding like driving isnât always safe. a bike and a car are different kinds of vehicles after all. and, a rider is much more exposed.
some people prefer loud bikes, for instance, because it increases their noticeability. ( and why would you want a bike taking up valuable parking space?! )
obviously, this stuff causes some people endless consternation. basically, donât assume a person is a being a dick.
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I think itâs fairly obvious that the reason you canât lane split in your Chevy is because it is too big to fit between adjacent cars in typical lanes. Thatâs not special treatment, thatâs just basic physics. However, If you can make your Chevy Spark about 30 inches wide, then I (speaking as a rider) would welcome you to join us.
However, in order to avoid any accusations of âspecial treatmentâ, youâll have to wear a helmet, just like motorcycle riders. California law and all.
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Per the article:
âSurprisingly, we found that the difference in speed between the motorcycle and the surrounding traffic was a bigger predictor of injury than speed alone,â said study lead author Thomas Rice, epidemiologist at SafeTREC, which is based at the UC Berkeley School of Public Health. âAbove a 15-mile-per-hour speed differential, the risk of injury rose significantly.â
Fascinating, this was also my intuitive feeling about danger.
As long as parallel traffic is going at similar speeds, itâs pretty safe, but if you have one lane going 100 MPH and the other going 20 MPH, thatâs⌠scary.
On a 3 lane highway, this advice probably applies equally to regular car traffic in each lane just as much as motorcycles in those âextraâ 2 middle lanes between the cars, too. Try to match speeds!
Also interesting to see the parallels here in social friction between car drivers and bicyclists, and car drivers and motorcyclistsâŚ
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Seriously. Fuck those people. Also the ones that jump in an exit lane and mash the gas pedal to get 2 cars ahead.
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You can stick lights all over a bike and the fact will remain that many car drivers simply will not notice a vehicle significantly smaller than their own. A European crash study found that the single greatest help in getting car drivers not to hit cyclists was if the driver had a motorcycle licenseâeven if it had lapsed. Tacking a couple hours of basic motorcycle instruction onto driver education might help.
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For those of us that donât own an actual motorcycle, Lane Splitter is a pretty fun iOS game.
In this thread: People that would be very angry driving anywhere else in the world.
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Not really, but letâs accept the premise for a moment ⌠with one condition: an individual lane is absolutely a queue for vehicles of the same type.
Lane splitting allows the superimposition of two discrete traffic streams onto the same physical space. Think of it like putting two frequencies of light down a single fibre-optic cable. Itâs just more efficient.
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This is my beef with lane splitting. I couldnât care less that someone is getting there faster than me, thatâs fine. But the number one key to safe driving is, IMHO, predictability. As long as everyone, even jerk drivers, do what everyone else thinks they will do, then there are no problems. But lane splitting puts a very unpredictable event into one of the most mundane, predictable driving conditions. Itâs naive to think that every driver in stopped traffic is paying the utmost attention to every direction of their surroundings. The situation you described above has happened to me as well; if the lane splitters are traveling at a much faster rate of speed than the car traffic, itâs much more likely that someone can end up next to you in the gap of time between checking mirrors and looking forward again and starting to change lanes.
As a side note, thereâs the âJESUS CHRIST THAT SCARED THE SHIT OUT OF MEâ factor of a louder-on-purpose bike screaming by with no warning that occasionally makes this very stressful for the other drivers. Iâve had physical panic attacks over it. Sounds trite but imagine someone sneaking up behind you and setting off an air horn next to your head. It was like that.
Speaking as a former rider who understood that safe riding means assuming that every car driver is doing their level best to kill you, I do wish motorcyclists would be a little more careful and considerate about it.
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And on the commute home today I figured lane splitting would suck for me cause of BOTTâS DOTS everywhere.
I tend to find lane splitting most useful in an actual stopped traffic situation, problem is as you get to the top of the snarl, lanes always tend to be merging. While California supports the lane split, the zipper merge is the most dangerous thing in NorCal. No one in the San Francisco Bay area who isnât an LA transplant can handle it. Traffic backs up at every zipper merge and motorcycles are just cheese in the grater.
