ph.lanesplitting

Shear"Ree,(front) head of Southern California Sport Bike Association, and Mark Russell,17, go between cars on the southbound 405 in Long Beach on July 10, 2007.

(Lori Shepler)

Oregon appears to be on the verge of allowing motorcycle riders to escape highway gridlock by driving between long lines of idling cars.

Although lawmakers have for years introduced bills proposing Oregon join California as a lane-splitting state, the efforts have crashed and burned before they even revved up

But on Thursday, the Senate, pushed by heavy lobbying from motorcycle groups, approved a proposal that would allow riders to "filter" between between traffic-jammed cars traveling less than 10 mph on highways with speed limits of 50 mph or more.

Senate Bill 694, which passed 18-10, also prohibits lane-splitting riders from going faster than 20 mph.

"Twenty miles per hour: That's school zone speed," said Portland attorney Christopher Slater, who helped lead lobbying for the bill. "Much of the bill was written with safety in mind."

It was also sold as a way to ease traffic congestion, especially in the fast-growing Portland area. "This is part of solving that puzzle," Slater said.

With traffic jams worsening in the state's largest urban area and no state plans to significantly add capacity to highways, supporters say allowing motorcyclists to squeeze through gridlock will help shave time off everyone's commute.

They point to a 2012 Belgian study showing that if just 10 percent of drivers were to switch to motorcycles and filter through traffic, travel times for the remaining car drivers would decrease by 40 percent.

Oregon appears to be a perfect testing ground for that theory.

In the past 15 years, the state has experienced a boom in motorcycle endorsements and registrations.

Between 2010 and 2013 alone, the last year when records are available, the number of licenses with motorcycle endorsements increased from 204,800 to nearly 234,000, according to state records.

Meanwhile, the greatest influx in motorcycle registration has happened in the Portland area, home to the state's worst daily traffic snarls.

Of Oregon's 132,123 registered motorcycles in 2014, about 21,000 were owned by Multnomah County residents, according to state Driver and Motor Vehicle records. Clackamas and Washington counties, meanwhile, had about 13,977 and 14,435 each, respectively.

"A lot of people are leaving their motorcycles at home and just driving a car because they see no real advantage of going by motorcycling," Slater said. "This bill could change that."

There may also be environmental advantages to allowing lane-splitting, which is also being considered by Washington lawmakers this spring.

A 2010 Oregon Department of Transportation report found that lane-splitting, also known as lane-sharing, could reduce greenhouse gas emissions as well as congestion.

Despite those possible benefits, however, many automobile drivers - and even motorcyclists - are uncomfortable with the idea, saying the practice is unsafe and amounts to line cutting in traffic. Responding to the bill passing the Senate, some commuters protested on Twitter, saying the practice is rude and unsafe.

@josephjrose is already risky as is, so why risk it more — Melissa (@meligirl91) April 23, 2015

@josephjrose Terrible. The many times I have experienced this it has never seemed safe. #oregon #pdxtraffic — Steve Paulson (@stevepaulson) April 23, 2015

Actually, a 2014 study by the California Office of Traffic Safety found that motorcyclists were less likely to be injured in crashes when splitting lanes in gridlock and didn't exceed the speed of other traffic by more than 10 miles an hour.

Still, the Governors Highway Safety Association has said it's skeptical that giving motorcyclists the freedom to lane split makes the nation's roads safer.

In fact, when ane-splitting popped up in 2010, Team Oregon Director Steve Garets, however, said he would urge then-Gov. John Kitzhaber to veto any such proposal.

Garets said lane-splitting violates the core safety principle of motorcycle commuters keeping a "space cushion" between them and other road users. He also worries that zooming between vehicles stuck in traffic could stir negative attitudes toward motorcyclists they feel are cheating to get out of traffic jams.

"It doesn't take much," Garets said at the time, "to move a car one foot or another to take out a motorcyclist."

This time around,

is officially neutral.

However, former Team Oregon instructor Brian Edwards testified din favor of the bill, arguing that lane-filtering would actually prevent motorcyclists from being sitting ducks and getting rear-ended in heavy traffic.

"Maintaining a space cushion is part of the instruction and curriculum, but so is identifying an escape route in congested traffic when you get to the point of basically having no options," Edwards said. "You need to take advantage of the space ahead of you when someone's coming up behind you."

In 2012, the most recent year available, motorcyclists were 26 times as likely to die per vehicle mile traveled as people in cars and trucks, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

Meanwhile, in Oregon, after years of decline, motorcycle fatalities jumped more than 34 percent to 45 in 2014.

With Kitzhaber out of office and Gov. Kate Brown focusing on transportation needs, Edwards said he expects the bill to pass through the House and be signed into law.

"Kitzhaber was the biggest obstacle," he said. "Kitzhaber was emergency room doctor who basically hated motorcycles."

Here's a mix of other responses to the bill on Twitter:

@josephjrose I get the congestion argument. I don't get the safety argument. — Petterdave (@petterdave) April 23, 2015

@josephjrose it's worked in CA for years, it makes riding safer. — Chris H. (@i5trucker) April 23, 2015

@josephjrose I didn't realize it wasn't already legal - I've seen in plenty of times. — Allison (@allisons) April 23, 2015

@josephjrose Because Oregon drivers are more sane and courteous than California's, hopefully no one will die. #pdxtraffic — Darla Krusee (@darlakrusee) April 23, 2015

@josephjrose Lane splitting doesn't sound like a good idea ANYwhere. There's already enough trouble with people seeing them. — Nonpartisan (@nonpartisantoo) April 23, 2015

-- Joseph Rose

503-221-8029

jrose@oregonian.com

@josephjrose