To the Ministry of Transportation representatives,

I am writing to you today regarding a flaw in the way motorcycles are allowed to behave in traffic, both on the highway and in urban roadways in Canada. Currently, motorcycles are expected to sit in traffic and behave as another automobile, and this leaves all motorcyclists horribly exposed to rear end collisions. The solution to this is called lane filtering, which allows motorcycles to go in between lines of cars, up to the front where they will be safe from inattentive drivers, and lets accept that there are too many distracted drivers these days. Currently, sitting in traffic requires a large amount of a riders attention, due to staring at their mirrors, and can take their focus away from what is going on in front/around them. In a car this doesn't matter as much since a car has 4 points of contact with the road surface, and is stable when stationary and when moving. A motorcycle is very different. When stationary a motorcycle is very unstable, only when a motorcycle is moving is it stable and easy to handle whether an experienced rider or new!

Furthermore on old air cooled bikes, any time you are not moving the likelihood of your motorcycle overheating causing a seized piston, seized bearing, warped engine mating surfaces, blowing out gaskets, etc. increases. Not to mention the riders themselves, wearing gear and/or leather gets VERY hot, and a camelback may not always be available.

Throughout this letter I will be referencing several studies about this practice, conducted by the University of California Berkeley and TM Leuven, a traffic management firm from Belgium, CLEPA European Association of Automotive Suppliers, and the US Department of Transportation: National Highway Transportation Safety Administration. I will provide a link to these studies for you to browse and verify that what I am saying is backed up by the statistics. I will also use New South Wales's (Australia) terms for filtering and lane splitting, who recently legalized filtering due to the benefits it offers to everyone!

Commonly filtering is referred to as lane splitting, however lane splitting and filtering are two distinctly different methods of navigating traffic. Filtering occurs at speeds of no faster than 30km/h, with a speed differential of no more than 25km/h. Lane splitting occurs at any speed over 30km/h, with the traffic differential remaining the same. Lane splitting is universally considered far riskier than filtering, as filtering happens at such slow speeds any unpredictable movements initiated by careless drivers are easy to keep in check and account for.It's worth mentioning that just because it is possible to go 30km/h between traffic, it does not mean it is advisable, or safe to do so. Any lane filtering would have to be safely, reasonably conducted according to conditions. The UC Berkeley study found that speed differentials of up to [25kph] did not increase injury severity when involved in a filtering incident.

Throughout almost the entire rest of the world, except the United States (barring California), it is considered a safe, practical, and logical thing to do: that room on the road isn't being used, so why not use it? Even in countries where it isn't expressly legal so much as it just isn't illegal, as long as it is being done in a SAFE manner it is possible for a rider to filter past cops! They even move over for them because they understand that every bike that filters past is one less car in front of them. Now you might be asking "How does this make sense, if they go past me in traffic, then they are in front of me!" This is incorrect, for the power to weight ratios motorcycles possess mean they accelerate to up to speed far quicker. This allows motorcyclists to remove themselves from the traffic equation. It has been calculated by TM Leuven that if just 10% of commuters switched to motorcycles and filtered, commute times would be reduced by up to 40%! Every motorcycle that filters helps everyone around them get where they are going just a little bit quicker!

Now a common misconception is that filtering just allows the riders in these countries to get where they are going faster, however it is not the REAL reason most of these countries allow filtering. The main reason filtering is allowed is because of the prevalence of distracted drivers now a days, what happens on a motorcycle when you are rear ended? I assure you it is not pretty, and you are almost guaranteed a trip to the hospital or the morgue. Rear-end accidents are the most predominant accident on our roads today. The NHTSA report 28% and German police report 22% of all accidents are rear-end in nature. Additionally, The 100-Car Naturalistic Driving Study reported that 22% of the recorded accidents were rear-end. These accidents effect vehicles and motorcycles equally.The UC Berkeley study found between August 2012 and 2013 that 4655 motorcyclists were rear ended while not [filtering], in the same period 968 were rear ended while they were [filtering]. We are almost 5x more likely to be rear ended while not filtering. It also found that the injury severity of riders while they were filtering was less: NOT filtering: Head: 17% Torso: 29% Fatality: 3.0% WHILE filtering: Head: 9% Torso: 19% Fatality: 1.2%. We are almost 3x more likely to die while not filtering. These are statistics that many motorcyclists understand fully and regardless of the legality, already commonly practice the safer option.

Furthermore, in British Columbia we have bicycle lanes everywhere. Good for the cyclists, not good for traffic. Bicycles are allowed to go up to the front of every traffic queue, when the light goes green the traffic bottlenecks as drivers move over to give the bicycle enough space. This makes the process unnatural and inefficient. If a motorcycle were allowed to proceed in this manner, the motorcycle would not be seen again as it possesses the best attributes of both types of vehicles: a slightly larger footprint than a bicycle, with the speed of a regular car and better acceleration.

The proposed rules that riders in Canada are asking for to allow filtering are (keeping in mind that these are subject to change, according to how the Ministry sees fit) similar to the rules that New South Wales in Australia has made legal:

-30kph filtering speed limit

-Speed differential of no more than 25 kph

-Filter safely and reasonably

-No filtering in active school zones

-Illegal ticket able offense for preventing a motorcycle from filtering

-Fully licensed riders only

It's time for Canada to update its laws around motorcycles. Riders should not be forced to put their lives into the hands of notoriously questionable drivers in this day and age. To have the facts available, pointing to the direction the law SHOULD go, and have it remain illegal is not right.

TM Leuven: http://www.tmleuven.com/project/motorcyclesandcommuting/20110921_Motorfietsen_eindrapport_Eng.pdf

UC Berkeley: http://www.ots.ca.gov/pdf/Publications/Motorcycle-Lane-Splitting-and-Safety-2015.pdf

US DOT NHTSA: http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/Pubs/809-540.PDF

The 100-Car Naturalistic Driving Study: http://www.nhtsa.gov/About+NHTSA/Press+Releases/2006/100-Car+Naturalistic+Driving+Study

CLEPA, European Association of Automotive Suppliers: http://www.unece.org/fileadmin/DAM/trans/doc/2009/wp29grrf/AEBS-LDW-02-05e.pdf

I thank you for your time and consideration. Please check out Canadians for Legal Lane Filtering on Facebook! Every like and share helps spread the message!