I am not talking about riding on a sidewalk either. A sidewalk is not a "lane". Ergo, riding between a lane of cars and a curb/sidewalk is not splitting anything. It is filtering. Splitting lanes can only happen between two lanes of cars.

You can call a peach an apple if you want to, but when a restaurant patron orders a peach cobbler and the waiter brings them apple pie there will be a discussion. Yes, they are both desserts, and made of fruit, but thanks to the gift of language and vocabulary we generally get the food we order. And I often SPLIT a dessert with my wife - creating two pieces of apple pie. I have never split a slice of apple pie and ended up with half a peach cobbler.

Splitting lanes requires that you ride between two traffic lanes populated with cars. There will generally be cars on both sides of you either in motion or stopped at a signal, wreck, cop, whatever. There would be no reason I can think of to split empty lanes - just ride inside the empty lane of your choice. So defining splitting empty traffic lanes is unnecessary as no one bikes between empty lanes. Therefore it could be said that splitting lanes = splitting motor vehicles in travel lanes. Riding between travel lanes and parked cars, sidewalks, curbs, bike trails, cow paths, ditches, or sound barriers, may be called filtering, but not lane splitting.

For good measure, I will paint one more picture. You are riding down a two-lane highway in the country. Your wheels are on the right fog line (no shoulder). Cars are passing you on the left in the travel lane. Is anyone splitting a lane here? Nope. Everyone is lane sharing. Then you come to an accident and a long traffic jam. You pass 100 cars as you bike along on the right edge of the road. You are still not splitting jack even though you are filtering to the front. But if you ride down the double yellow line BETWEEN those two lanes of traffic...viola! You are now splitting lanes.

Foolish is in the eye of the beholder apparently. Now please excuse me as I must have a slice of apple pie now.