At Two Slow, we take a benevolent view to most drivers. We know you’re not trying to kill us, you’re just driving a 4,000 pound, sound proof entertainment center. Hell, just the other day I saw a commercial where they were bragging about the noise reduction capability of their new truck’s cab. People don’t look for us on bikes, their brain isn’t trained to see anything smaller than a Honda CRV, they can’t hear us because their cars are hermetically sealed with double pane windows, and they’re too busy texting or talking on the phone to notice us trying to get to work.

Here in California, lane sharing (lane splitting, splitting traffic, et al) is legal as long it is done safely. The CHP has issued guidelines for motorcyclists and motorists to follow. Shockingly, however, I continually have non-riders ask me questions: “Do you split lanes?” “Isn’t that illegal?” “It’s unsafe, why do you do it?” “What should I do when I see a bike splitting?” “Why did that guy look/wave/glare at me?” “Why did that guy give me the finger?” And so and so forth. I can’t possibly cover every single situation or explain every single rider’s behavior (just like I don’t expect you to explain every driver’s behavior), but maybe we can come to some common ground. Read on to learn how to be a good lane sharing partner.

That’s right, I said partner. We all want to get home safe and doing so is a shared responsibility.

For the record, this is not a post about arguing if lane sharing is safe or dangerous. That’s for another time. If you came here looking for that fight, I’ll gladly have it in person, but not here. So let’s break it down to a few key things to keep in mind: Lane position, space, signals, and attitude.

Lane Position

Most motorcycles are only 30-40 inches wide. While we greatly appreciate those drivers who give us room to pass, you don’t need to drive on the shoulder for us to get by. If people in the left lane stay to the left we generally have more than enough room. Realistically, if we want to pass that badly, we’ll get by with much less.

Real quick, highway lanes are numbered starting from the far left lane (far left is the #1 lane). Most riders will split lanes and 1 and 2, or they’ll drive in the space between the carpool (HOV) and the #1 lane. So, how far over can you move to help us get by you? If you’re in the carpool lane, and your left wheels are near the left ‘dots,’ that’s plenty of space in any normal sized personal vehicle. If there is no carpool lane and you’re in the #1, stay as far to the left as safe. Keep in mind, I’m not telling you what to do, but if you’re inclined to give a rider space, you needn’t drive on the shoulder, just give us a foot or two. If you’re not sure what to do given traffic, cars on the shoulder, etc, DO NOTHING. Go in a straight line and make no sudden moves. We’ll get around you when we’re ready and able.

So that’s your lane position, but when it comes to our lane position, a couple things to consider. Riders change their lane position constantly. We’re not ‘swerving all over’ or ‘driving like [we] own the road.’ We position ourselves so we can see, and so you can see us. We position ourselves to give us time to react to other cars. We measure time as space, the further away from you we are, the more time we have to react. Which brings us to the next topic, Space.

Space

“Space” to a motorcyclists is much different than a driver. Keep in mind we’re inches away from cars all day, so we’re used to being very close. That means you don’t need to swerve over aggressively if you suddenly see us passing you or in the other lane. We’re generally not going to try and lane share by you if we’re not confident of how much space you’re giving us. We’re either going to gas it to get by you, we’re going to sit behind you until we feel like you’ve seen us, or we’re not sure what you’re doing so we’re going to stay behind you so we don’t get run over.

That said, most riders don’t like when a car tries to lane share by us. Yes, it seems hypocritical, but when we’re trying to control the space around us and suddenly you’re somewhere we’re not expecting you to be, it concerns us. It’s nothing personal, we just don’t want to die. If you feel like we’re not going fast enough, make it clear by staying a constant, respectful distance (just like you would another car). We’ll see you and change lanes or speed up. Your covert and overt signals to us will tell us a great deal about your intentions, and let us manage the space around us and you.

Signals

See what I did there? Yeah, signals. There’s a popular meme floating around the internet and it looks something like this:

We will generally look for your signal to determine what your intentions are, and we make choices based on what we think you’re doing. Now, that doesn’t mean we’re stupid. People don’t use them. They just don’t. It’s a fact of life, like water is wet and the sky is blue. It helps us and other drivers around you when you use them.

“Why’s this guy driving 10 under surrounding traffic? He’s not changing lanes, what’s up?” “Oh, looks like it’s safe for me to lane share by. Nope! They decided to change lanes right when I went by them.” Happens all the time; happened to me just last week. Nice gap for me to lane share by, and soon as I got amidships on the car, guy changed lanes right into me. No look. No signal. I avoid it well enough, but it was a close one. Did I get pissed? Not really. Was it the third time that week someone had either no-looked or crossed a double-yellow? It sure was. But I’m not going to let someone else’s carelessness ruin my day. See, it’s all about attitude.

Attitude

Attitude makes a difference in everything. My attitude as well as yours can influence what happens during our interaction on the highway. I’ve heard stories about riders being harassed and chased down after they lane-shared by someone. Come on, really? Does the biker somehow ‘win’ and you ‘lose’ if they go by you? What difference does it make? If people would stop for a moment and think about this critically, they’d realize for every bike on the road, that’s one less traffic-causing car. Every time we lane share, we’re easing congestion.

But I digress. Attitude. Imagine this perfect scenario. I’m lane-sharing on my way to work. We’re in the carpool lane, and you see me coming up behind you. You slide over slightly, I ease by you, I give you a wave or peace sign to say ‘thanks,’ I go on by way and so do you knowing you helped a stranger get to home or work safely.

Now let’s flip it. You’re pissed about something, and I’m pissed about all these cars ‘in my way.’ I come up faster than you’d like, and instead of shifting over, you plant yourself on the double yellows and make it clear you don’t want me going by you. Well I don’t really need your space or your permission so I scoot on by and give you the finger as I go by, maybe I Donkey Kong your mirror as some kind of payback for holding me up for a 20 seconds. Now you’re pissed and I’m pissed. I’m going to pass every car thinking they’re out to get me. You’re going to block every bike you see because it’s “not fair” that they can lane share while you’re stuck in stop-and-go.

Isn’t the first option much better? Life is hard enough without us trying to kill each other on a routine basis. Someone has to extend the olive branch, so here I am. It’s not a war. We don’t want a war and neither do you. Hell, we lose in a car/bike fight anyway. It’s like taking a spoon to a gun fight. Be kind to each other out there and let’s make the world a little bit nicer. There’s plenty of stuff to get upset about in this world, lane sharing is not one of them.

So what’s the bottom line? Lane position, space, signals and attitude. We need to work together. I won’t pretend that all riders are 100% angels 100% of the time. On the flip side, please don’t try to say ‘all riders’ do this or that. I’m sure we could battle that one out between ‘all riders’ and ‘all drivers’ until the Zombie Apocalypse. We all have our moments of ass-hattery regardless of what kind of vehicle we’re using at the time.

Be kind to each other. We’re all someone’s son or daughter, mother or father.

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