The latest state to consider legalizing lanesplitting and filtering for motorcycles: Tennessee! And surprisingly, politicians in the Volunteer State are proposing a very liberal policy, perhaps the most permissive in the US outside California.

Under the terms of HB1454, put forward by Rep. Jeremy Faison, motorcycles would be able to travel between lanes of stopped or moving cars in stretches of road limited to 50 mph or more. Motorcyclists would be allowed to move between cars when traffic was traveling at 25 mph or less, and would be restricted to a speed of no more than 10 mph faster than cars.

In other words: If traffic was going 40 in a 50, no lanesplitting. If traffic was going 5 in a 55, motorcyclists could lanesplit between moving cars at 15 mph.

Faison says motorcyclist safety is the reason for his bill. The proposed changes should reduce the chance of a motorcyclist being rear-ended in traffic. Such reasoning has generally been behind most of the movement to bring in filtering and lanesplitting in the US, although it is also true that lane sharing can also play a huge role in reducing urban gridlock as motorists move from space-hogging cars to smaller, more efficient motorcycles.

You can see the proposed billhere. Note that as of time of publication of this article (March 2, 2023), it’s “Placed on Senate Transportation and Safety Committee calendar for 3/8/2023.” It’s already passed on first and second consideration, so after some careful examination in the days to come, we may actually see Tennessee join Utah, Montana and of course California as US states joining the world at large in allowing motorcycle lane sharing.