this post was submitted on 06 Sep 2025
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Motorcycles
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TL;DW: Car drivers are salty about lane splitting motorcycles (and also bicycles, scooters, pedestrians, birds, small dogs, etc.) because of the Crab In A Bucket mentality. They think because their life sucks and they're suffering in traffic everyone else needs to suffer just as much, therefore splitting is "cutting in line" or "cheating" as if there is some virtue in your transit time being comparable to someone else's.
(But I did watch it anyway, because F9.)
Anyway, I read someplace several years ago and now conveniently can't find the source, if 40 or 50% or so of current urban commuters switched to motorcycles from cars, volume based rush hour congestion would be solved in most (possibly all) currently car-centric Western cities.
So go buy a motorcycle.
I'm probably preaching to the choir in this specific community, though.
Motorcyclist here, you can't pay me to split.
Cagers are oblivious - I'm not risking my neck to split.
Ryan F9 isn't splitting, tho. He's filtering: slowly riding through slow moving or stopped traffic. There's a big difference.
At this point, so many people are misusing both terms that it doesn't really matter which term is used anymore.
Well, I guess continue ban it all then cuz we're all too stupid to agree on a name for something. What's your point? Regardless of the name, the actions of a lane filterer are much different than those of a lane splitter.
When did I say to ban it? My point is that the "well aCkTcHyUaLLy" bullshit with the term difference nearly always falls on deaf ears, and you'll be hard pressed to find someone who is irritated by us safely filtering that would even remotely give a shit when corrected. There are people who get sent into a blind rage over filtering, they aren't gonna be swayed by any sort of terminology - they think we're all "cheating" regardless.
The bigger issue that needs to be focused on is people using their cars as weapons just because they think that, since they are suffering, we should suffer, too. And you're over here being a petty bitch about terminology. That is the problem I have with what you said.
I wouldn't do it unless the traffic was backed up and still like in the video. Tho it is also illegal in my state :(
I get the logic, but it makes people in cars panic, and that's never a safe thing either.
When on the road, I choose to just stay in gear with the clutch in at stops, and I always stop in a spot where I can quickly pop out of should I need to. Sometimes that means I need to be on a bit of an angle or whatever, but my first thoughts pulling up to a red light are: wheres the path of escape should I need it, and what's behind me and do they see me.
I both split and filter regularly, and feel perfectly safe doing so. Now, I'm not splitting at high speed, only up to about 35mph, and I live in CA where it is legal and common. Commuter traffic here in the Bay Area is very accustomed and polite to us.
As a car driver and recreational motorcycle driver; I'll drive in my car, it's dangerous to drive a bike in heavy traffic? Also, I'll give bikers all the space, they're very vulnurarble.
Its dangerous to ride. Period. So you might as well get to your destination faster.
I agree, I avoid traffic as much as humanly possible. I never ride in high traffic times.
I also agree on space, but it seems to be a game of how close someone can get to me without hitting me, and how many cell phones they can hold up, in addition to all the other distractions. I give bikers all the space they need, but it's not me they need to be worried about. It's all the other boneheads.
Whelp, don't have to tell me twice!
Wife's sure as shit going to be mad as hell though, if I come home with another bike lol