Motorcycle Responsibility

My column in the April issue of Minnesota Motorcycle Monthly magazine is about my take on what motorcyclists and motorcycle organizations need to do to get us to the level of acceptance where we might get some traffic preference and lane sharing/splitting. Oddly, this month’s Revzilla Common Threat column is on Washington state’s new lane splitting law and, prepare to be amazed, how screwed up it is.

The key phrase in the law is "The operator of a motorcycle shall not overtake and pass in the same lane occupied by the vehicle being overtaken, except on the left-hand side of a vehicle traveling in the left-most lane of traffic on a numbered state highway identified in chapter 47.17 RCW that has two or more lanes of traffic in each direction if the operator of the motorcycle is traveling at a rate of speed no more than ten miles per hour over the speed of traffic flow and not more than twenty-five miles per hour."

Think about it.