I lived near Boston, Massachusetts for most of my life. The traffic is bad, and the drivers are worse. When you’re stuck in traffic on a motorcycle, it’s all too tempting to make your own lane between the official traffic lanes, but it’s highly illegal. A more immediate concern is aggressive Boston drivers blocking your way or running you off the road for even trying. While drivers in the rest of the US aren’t generally as bad, lanesplitting remains illegal in all but one state.

That state is California, where I’ve spent a bit of time in recent years. The rules are different there. Splitting lanes when traffic slows down is not only allowed, it’s encouraged. After being “not illegal” and common practice for many years, it was made explicitly legal in 2016. Eventhe California Highway Patrol says so. Other states have tried to pass lane filtering laws since then,with limited success. But filtering only lets you make your way to the front of the line through stopped traffic, usually at a red light. It’s not the free-for-all that California allows. CHP has defined guidelines for lanesplitting (keep it under 40 mph, don’t go more than 10 mph faster than traffic), but as guidelines rather than laws, they’re not strictly enforced. One law thatisenforced is that it’s illegal for drivers to impede a lanesplitting motorcycle.

Why Is Lanesplitting Legal in California?

The big question that comes to mind, mainly for drivers, is “but why?” The main reason is to ease traffic congestion. The benefits to motorcyclists are obvious. During my visits to LA, I can take the time Google Maps estimates it will take me to reach my destination, then cut it in half for my actual travel time. But this doesn’t just help motorcycles, either.

“As motorcycles are moving through, splitting the lanes, that’s one less vehicle occupying that lane,” CHP Motorcycle Officer Brian O’Tooletold KTLA. “It’s saving the average motorist in a car time. If we were to all of a sudden not allow lane splitting anymore, that’s a motorcycle sitting in the lane ahead of them.” More stopped vehicles means even worse traffic than already exists.

I’ve been told that another reason for its legality is to train drivers to expect this behavior so that police motorcycles can get through traffic more quickly and safely. Consider Ponch and Jon weaving their way up to yet another 20-car pileup with a disco soundtrack on every episode ofCHiPs. If drivers already let all motorcycles by, Ponch and Jon will have no problem getting to the scene quickly despite traffic. Although it makes sense, I haven’t been able to confirm that this reason is actually true. Flashing lights and sirens should already warn everyone to get out of the way.

One benefit of lane splitting that’s easy to confirm is our safety. There is absolutely no risk of us being hit from behind by inattentive traffic if we’re moving faster than traffic between the lanes. That eliminates the possibility of getting sandwiched between two cars, a potentially fatal crash.

How Does It Work in the Real World?

As an east coast native, I was simultaneously excited and apprehensive about lane splitting in California. Since it’s illegal everywhere I’ve lived, I hadn’t done it before (no, really, I’m not just saying that). It takes a fair bit of concentration, and you have to have your head on a swivel to watch traffic. The accepted practice is to split between the far left lane and the lane to the right of it (the number one and two lanes, as CHP calls them). You can legally split anywhere you want, but this is where drivers will be expecting to see you, so it’s safer to go with the flow. In fact, many drivers will move over within their lane to give you some extra space to get by. Other times they’ll leave a gap to the car ahead of them that you can use to slalom between cars.

Not everyone will work with you to get through traffic. While I can’t prove that I’ve been intentionally blocked, there have certainly been some vehicles that have prevented me from getting by. Usually these are big trucks that are too wide to give me room, and I don’t blame them. Occasionally a car or pickup truck will pace the car next to them, and not leave enough space to squeeze through.Loud pipes don’t save lives, but my friend Carolyn has a louder exhaust on her Harley-Davidson Sportster specifically so that cars will hear her coming as she splits her way to work. If someone doesn’t let you by, often a quick brap of the throttle will help. My KLR and V-Strom 650 have stock exhausts, so I don’t have this advantage. I’ll let my friend on the Harley go first.

Lane splitting isn’t just for the freeways, either. Most surface streets in the LA area have multiple lanes, and you can practice what some states call “lane filtering.” States likeUtah,Montana, andArizona不允许加州高速公路车道分裂像, but they do permit motorcycles to slowly pass stopped cars between lanes, typically leading up to a red light. This also works well in California. It provides the same safety benefit of preventing the risk of getting hit from behind. While you can’t run a red light, you can get a jump on the pack of cars that stopped for it. This keeps you out of slower traffic, and improves visibility ahead of you without all those cars in the way.

Why Isn’t Lane Splitting Legal Everywhere?

The truth is, itislegal in most of the world. The United States and Canada are two of the few countries that have laws prohibiting it. By not allowing lane splitting, we’re actually the exception, not the rule.

As big a fan as I am of legal lane splitting, I don’t think it would work if, miraculously, a federal law was passed making it legal everywhere. Many drivers think it’s extremely dangerous and should be banned. Others believe that if they have to wait in traffic, we should as well, regardless of the evidence that lane splitting eases congestion for everyone.

Most importantly, I don’t think it will be safe unless drivers actively acknowledge and cooperate with the practice. Even if cities like Boston or New York legalized lane splitting today, the attitudes of drivers wouldn’t change overnight. They’d be just as opposed to it as they are now. They would probably still put us in danger trying to block us from splitting, legally or otherwise. People who I otherwise consider friends have flat out told me that’s what they’d do.

My crystal ball sees only incremental progress. Utah, Montana, and Arizona somewhat allow it.Virginia is considering it, whileOregon vetoed it. It looks like the wonderful world of California lane splitting will remain isolated to California for the foreseeable future. It works so well there, though.