Bike Rat

Practically speaking, I agree, most roadways prevent motorcycles from lane splitting without spilling into an adjacent lane, largely due to varied vehicle widths and vehicle positioning within the primary lane.

When motorcycling, the only time I ever split lanes was in crawling or stopped bumper-to-bumper traffic, and I did it at a very slow speed. I felt it impractical to sit in traffic when I had both the ability and avenue to progress forward. Many cars would scoot over to allow me greater passing room, and there was the occasional driver who would try to block me...surely out of jealousy of my forward movement. I felt that if they were able, most drivers would have split lanes in those situations as well. I think it also helped that I had the appearance of a responsible motorcyclist with a low-key (not loud) cruiser, rather than a "biker" or "crotch-rocket", and at my slow speed, I obviously wasn't being a jerk about it.

Ha-ha! For some reason, imagining a unicycle splitting lanes is funny. Did he get the ticket for lane splitting, or for lane splitting while juggling!

I lived in central Austin for a year. I remember seeing Austin cyclists ticketed for riding on the sidewalk downtown, riding against traffic on one-way streets. There's so many bicycle law breakers there, it's not something the police can overlook. In order to maintain their control APD clamps down on the most minor of offenses, and they don't tread lightly. I saw a cop responding to a minor incident on 6th, his van (drunk tank) was impeded by the crowd, so he exited his car, pushed a bicyclist in front of his car off his bike, picked up the bike and threw it out of his way, then challenged all onlookers to do something about it. Oh, to be a legally sanctioned silverback.

Off-topic, but I also witnessed an APD cop assist a driver who was backing up to parallel park downtown. Once parked and out of the car, he ticketed the driver for parking too close to a fire hydrant. Jerkish indeed!

A UT cop gave me a written(?) warning for running a stop sign...my commute took me through campus, I was pushing my largest gear up a hill on San Jancito(?) with a three-way stop sign midway, the cop and I arrived at the intersection at the same time, he clearly was waiting on me so I blew through the stop sign (as I always did there) while looking at him, and him watching me...probably thinking "he's not gonna stop". Anyway, he pulled me over, he was professional, I told him I obviously saw him, he was clearly waiting for me to pass, it seemed as though we had established an eye-contact/body-language understanding that I didn't need to stop since he could see I was pushing at the pedals hard (again, largest gear), blah-blah-blah. The entire time I was thinking, I wonder if he appreciates that I actually stopped when he flashed his lights, that I could have easily eluded him by cutting across campus (was on mtb). So like I said, just a warning.

I'm a native San Antonian. Forr now, bicycle law enforcement here is still quite lax...unless you're riding like a total idiot. I've heard of fixie riders being ticketed for no brake, delivery riders for running lights and sidewalk usage (jumping onto sidewalk to get around traffic). Over the last 2.5 years we've gained a significant hipster and hipster-wannabe bike culture with large organized rides that sometimes flaunt traffic law-breaking...some of the organizers are trying to reverse the trend before it gets too out of hand. We have also gained considerably more recreational riders due to greenway trail development, and B-Cycle users.

I actually set-up a bike specifically for riding on sidewalks...it's my urban assault bike, lol, but its real function is to just enjoy the simple pleasure of casually riding around and exploring like I did when I was a kid.

Congratulations on getting bike share...we beat you, haha! I'm curious what the APD response will be to those using B-Cycle...ticket all users except tourists?