Highways are expensive critical infrastructure. Traffic congestion in the Washington area alone adds 180 million hours of traffic delay and consumes 85 million excess gallons of gas.

Loz Blain observed "Where many drivers get it wrong is that they see lane splitting as "queue jumping" that will cause each car to go one further spot back in the queue. In truth, a filtering bike disappears from the queue altogether, the only time a motorcycle holds a car up is when it sits in traffic and acts like another car."

Fourteen thousand people petitioned the President for legalization by stating it "reduces car traffic because of the space a motorcycle takes up behind a car."

A 2011 study in Belgium found that replacing 10 percent of cars with motorcycles and allowing lanesplitting would cut time stuck in traffic by 63 percent — for everyone. Further, the study found considerable environmental benefits because each motorcycle that lanesplits actively reduces the amount of time every other vehicle on the road spends sitting in traffic jams, total emissions would decrease by 6 percent.