Today was a big day in NYC - there was a huge bike event, a fire / police parade, an Israeli parade, and a block party. Until about 4pm, huge stretches of the east and west sides were shut down and inaccessible to traffic.
In order to get anywhere, I found myself lane splitting between what amounted to a massive parking lot. I ran into a number of bikers - but not nearly as many as I saw yesterday (today was about 15 degrees colder) - who were also lane splitting, and so I wondered whether it was really legal or not.
Alas, it is illegal. A quick search on the AMA website: http://home.ama-cycle.org/amaccess/laws/result.asp?state=NY reveals that NY and CT have written laws forbidding lane splitting, while NJ has no reference, which means it's not specifically illegal. Here's a table form of the same data: http://motorcycleinfo.calsci.com/PrintLaws.html
Though I've never been ticketed or pulled over, and I've seen hundreds of bikers do it in the city, a quick internet search reveals that others have been ticketed - especially on the highways around the city. The BQE, 9A around midtown, and 495 (heading into the city, around the triborough ramp) are the most frequent highways where I lane split. Mostly, these stretches of road become parking lots, and I'll only lane split when the traffic is completely stopped. Any other time (even if traffic moves 10 mph), I'm religious about sneaking back into a lane and staying in a single lane.
In the city, it's a completely different story. I've lane split right up to police cars, and in front of traffic cops in order to get up to the front of a light, so that I can be in front of traffic when it turns green. For the thousands of times I've done it, I've never been pulled over, flagged, or questioned.
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2 comments:
motorcyclists are the absolute worst motorists on the road today. 7 times per mile more likely to DIE. mainly because of the way they operate machinery without regard of law or common sense. if you speed - eventually everyone will be in your way, if you split lanes, ditto - but in this case you could die. waitng for or expecting police to give you a ticket is the same as being a habitual criminal always looking over your shoulder for big daddy to tell you youre wrong. motorcycles are a menace and should have $1000 a month insurance policies and wear a helmet retard. one ticket and they should get their motorcycle license yanked for a year. i have never ever seen a donorcycle that didnt break the law within 1000 yards of me. they should all carry shovels so we can scrape them off the asphalt after they collide with thier victims, and have a specially awful prison just for them. i'd kill them all like rats if i was not punished for not breaking the law like they do.
gr8 b8 m8
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