urban_assault

Hey HH. You should write a book about cycling in traffic.

Helmet Head

Thanks but I don't think I know enough or write well enough, at least not yet.
But part of what I do here is work on that.
Look at how confusing my description of "lane sharing" was. San Rensho (understandably in retrospect) thought my initial definition presumed riding along at the same speed.

urban_assault

Keep working on it. You will get it right one day.

Allister

Nor, apparently, do you have the ability to pick up on irony.

Aren't we the frikken lucky ones.

I certainly can't see any point to your post.

JRA

So, if you don't see it on that page, the CHP never said it? Your logic is flawless. You crack me up.

I was paraphrasing what I read on a CHP page a long time ago. Since it was long ago and I don't have a link, I bow to your unquestionable knowledge of everthing the CHP has ever said and concede the point. It's not important anyway.

I see in a post (to which you replied) on the chainguard list the suggestion that the California legislature has given the CHP the authority to make traffic regulations. This surprises me (although I have no reason to not believe it). If it is true, then the weight I give to statements made by the CHP changes and I'd like to revise my previous statement and say that lane-sharing is, in general, illegal in all states except California (and not in all 50 states, as I previously claimed). If the CHP has such authority, then lane-sharing is indeed legal in California.

If you think that lane-sharing (or lane-splitting or whitelining or whatever you call it) is not illegal in every state except for California (at least for motorcycles), then you disagree with a lot of motorcyclist websites. All the websites I've read agree on that (although there seems to be some disagreement on whether it's legal in California).

Just a couple of quotes:

From Laneshare.org (which describes itself as "a grass-roots collaborative effort by motorcyclists and motorcycle safety professionals to promote lanesharing")- Lanesharing is not legal in the US, but it is allowed or tolerated in parts of the country, notably California.

Laneshare.org also says, "Misconceptions are rampant about lanesharing..." (and they haven't even seen the horse hockey HH has posted in this thread).

On its California page, Laneshare.org says, "The practice of lane-sharing has been allowed for decades. Yet, contrary to popular belief, there is no California statute permitting the practice."

From the Ducati Monster FAQ: "Lane splitting" in almost all states, except for California, is prohibited by law."

So, at least in the case of motorcylists, lane-sharing is apparently illegal everywhere in the US except in California where it seems to be legal (although it may be considered reckless at the discretion of a law enforcement officer).

Even outside of California, prohibitions on lane-sharing are often not enforced.

I've not seen anyone besides you make this distinction. It seems to be a Sergism, a disticntion that serves no purpose other than to "prove" a wacky HH theory-- in this case a wild HH fantasy about what the CA legislature "obviously" intended.

JRA

You either missed or chose to ignore the part where I said, "as a general rule" and my statement that, "there are exceptions."

But you bring up a good point. When it comes to lane-sharing, bicyclists are a notable exception (actually the major exception I was thinkng of). While it's possible that it's illegal for a motorist to share a lane with any other vehicle (sharing a lane with a motorcycle is explictly prohibited in some states, for example), a motorist not only can share a lane with a bicyclist, a bicyclist is actually required to share in some cases. One of the few times that sharing a lane is clearly legal is when it involves a bicycle-- to be more specific, a bicycle in a lane of sufficient width to be shared (whatever width that is).

The unique status (or, rather, lack thereof) of bicyclists concerns me and is why I can't get enthusiastic about lanes that are so wide that bicyclists are prohibited from taking the lane. This may reinforce the notion that bicyclists have no choice and must share. I'm not aware of any vehicle drivers besides bicyclists that are ever required to share a lane (drivers of other slow moving vehicles--maybe--although width might be an issue and I don't know that the requirement to share is as clearly stated as it is for bicyclists).

The purpose of the "as far right as practicable" language is the same as the purpose of a WOL: to allow motorists to pass bicyclists, in the immortal words of that great promoter of WOLs (not to mention urban sprawl), John Forester, "without delay."

JRA

That statement is ironic coming from you considering your long history of hijacking threads with freaky 'foaming at the mouth' anti-bike lane rants (although you don't seem to have done this a whole lot lately).

Lane-sharing has a lot to do with WOLs. The functionality of WOLs requires lane-sharing.

If WOLs reinforce the notion that bicyclists must lane-share, then they might add to confusion about what bicyclists' rights are.

I've read a good deal of pro-WOL propaganda and I'm not at all convinced that WOLs are any less in conflict with basic traffic principles than well-designed BLs are. I'm also not convinced that WOLs are any less confusing than well-designed BLs are.

I have doubts about the "vehicularity" of lane-splitting (or whatever they're calling it these days).

They paint lines on the road for a reason.

Helmet Head

No, it means I don't see it on that page. Concluding that that means the CHP never said it is your logic, not mine.

Again that would be conceding your point contradicting your own earlier point, and has nothing to do with what I said, which was merely an observation about a CHP page I found related to this point.

As a CA resident, it's important to me to know whether it's true that the CHP doesn't care what the law is.

It surprises me too, and until I see some kind of citation for it, I'm going to assume it's not true.

The reason lane-splitting and lane-sharing are legal in California is not because the CHP has such authority. They just happen to confirm what I believe to be a reasonable interpretation of the law, and the legislative intent.

Every motorcyclist website I've seen that says lane-sharing is legal only in CA is using lane-sharing and lane-splitting synonymously - as near as I can tell. They mean lane-splitting (per the definitions in the OP) when they're referring to lane-sharing. Given that understanding, I don't disagree.

Indeed, laneshare.org is quite clear that they are talking specifically about lane-splitting (per my OP) and not lane-sharing (per my OP):
This is what I mean by lane-splitting in the OP: "Riding a bicycle or motorcycle between lanes of traffic.".

In the bicycling community, sharing lanes rarely refers to that. I believe the definition for lane-sharing I provide in the OP is more consistent with usage within the cycling community: "Traveling fully within a lane, but far enough over to one side or another to leave room for another vehicle to travel alongside in that same lane."

This, by the way, is from the California drivers manual:

https://www.dmv.ca.gov/pubs/hdbk/pgs55thru57.htm

In this context I think "share lanes" is clearly more in line with my definition than that used by laneshare.org, which is very specific about it involving overtaking slow/stopped lines of cars by riding in between them.

I totally agree, again, given their very specific definition of "lane-sharing" that they, to their credit, make quite clearly on their home page, which is clearly the same behavior as what I defined as "lane-splitting" in the OP.

How do you reconcile the language of 21658, "A vehicle shall be driven as nearly as practical entirely within a single lane and shall not be moved from the lane until such movement can be made with reasonable safety", with the consensus, with which you apparently agree, that lane-splitting is not illegal in California?

As to the need to make the distinction, your references make my point. If lane-splitting/lane-sharing is used to mean the same thing: "moving between stopped or slow moving traffic during times of congestion and between lanes of vehicles", then what do you call the practice of a bicyclist (or slow motorcyclist, or driver of any slow moving vehicle for that matter) purposefully traveling far enough over in a lane so that faster drivers can overtake him safely without leaving the lane, or while only encroaching partially into the adjacent lane? If you call that lane-splitting too, then how can you claim that lane-splitting is illegal in all states, unless you're also claiming that that kind of overtaking of slow-moving vehicles is illegal in those states too. Are you?

Helmet Head

Point taken. I think I will add WOL and discussion of lane width to the OP.

Helmet Head

As far as I know the driver of any slow-moving vehicle is required to share lanes in most states, at least on roads without multiple lanes in the given direction. For example, here is the law in California:

.
https://dmv.ca.gov/pubs/vctop/d11/vc21654.htm

Also, per CVC 21650 (f), drivers of all slow moving vehicles are allowed to move partially if not totally, off the road into the shoulder in order to allow faster traffic to pass, implying that they are allowed to share the lane they are moving out of:

https://dmv.ca.gov/pubs/vctop/d11/vc21650.htm

Considering bicyclists are also never required to move into a shoulder, they are not really an exception in how they are treated by the law as compared to drivers of slow moving vehicles, except on roads with multiple lanes (in which they are still required to keep right in the rightmost lane, but drivers of slow moving vehicles are only required to keep to the rightmost lane). They're just assumed to be drivers of slow moving vehicles most of the time, and narrow enough to share lanes, and required to behave accordingly. Most of these "bicyclists must share" laws have exceptions for the requirements to share lanes when the cyclist happens to be moving the same speed as other traffic.

Helmet Head

Given that I'm usually advocating for one thing or another, i guess I can't blame any of you for assuming this thread is about that too. But I'm just trying to nail down some definitions. Every field of human activity I can think of has its own jargon... from engineering to medicine, from law practice to ballet, from sailing to skiing... they all have their expressions and terminology. In each field, the more precise the definitions of the particular terms used in the jargon, the clearer the meaning of statements using those terms. For example, the difference between what scientists mean by "theory" and the layman definition of "theory" leads to a lot of misunderstand about the Theory of Evolution (many laymen thinking it's "just" a "theory" and not based in the mountain of scientific facts that it is based on).

The activity of traffic cycling is not quite there. What particular terms we use, they are not commonly understood to mean the same thing, as the discussions in this thread have illustrated.

Never-the-less, my goal is to keep whacking at the OP until I develop these definitions and achieve near consensus about them. What i seek to do is define them not how I think they should be defined, but how I understand most people use them when talking about traffic cycling. That's why I seek input from all of you. If there is something in the OP that defines something differently from how you thinks others tend to use it, please let me know.

With that in mind, I announce two more updates.

First, lane-splitting. What I currently have is this:I'm going to make a relatively minor update:I think this is closer to what most people mean when they refer to lane-splitting, and is consistent with the intended usage on the motorcycling websites. If you disagree, let me know. Also, given that lanes are adjacent (at the center of the stripe that divides them) - there is no space between "lanes", but there is space between lines of traffic.

But I also want to expand on my definition of lane-sharing, which I believe is currently too restrictive compared to how it is commonly used:I think I had the CVC 21202 definition of what makes a lane shareable in mind when I wrote this, and that's why I restricted it to being "fully within a lane". But really there is no need for this restriction. Indeed, if you're riding on a shoulder stripe you're sharing the lane to your left, even though you are not fully in it. And a lane-splitter who is whitelining is simultaneously sharing both lanes. So here is the updated version of lane-sharing:I think that's much cleaner and more consistent with what people are talking about when they refer to sharing lanes.

I'm also adding the following definitions:

• Whitelining: Using lane-straddling in order to lane-split.
• Filtering forward: Using lane-sharing (either on the outside or lane-splitting) to overtake slow or stopped traffic.

EDIT: Now I remember why I defined lane-sharing the way that I did... so that I could distinguish lane Lane-splitting while lane-straddling from lane-splitting while lane-sharing. So I'm changing the latter to lane-splitting without lane-straddling.

Helmet Head

I just added this to explain why the terminology is not as simple and interchangeable in bicycle traffic cycling as it is in motorcycling:

• In the context of motorcycling, lane-sharing is almost always used to refer to filtering forward while lane-splitting, so these three terms, along with whitelining, are often used interchangeably in that context. For example:
  Often called lane-splitting, white-lining, or filtering, lanesharing is the practice by motorcyclists of moving between stopped or slow moving traffic during times of congestion and between lanes of vehicles, traveling in the same direction. https://laneshare.org/index.html
  But for bicyclists, who are often moving slower than other traffic, lane-splitting is not necessarily done in order to be filtering forward, and lane-sharing is not necessarily whitelining (could be sharing on the outside, or splitting without straddling lanes), filtering forward (in fact usually the bicyclist is being overtaken), or lane-splitting (between lines of traffic)

Allister

Why do you think we even need consensus? Seems like an unrealistic goal in this place. It's only you that thinks it's important to 'nail down definitions', apparently based on the kooky idea that you can learn cycling from a book.

Helmet Head

I never said you can learn cycling from a book. You can't, just like you can't learn computer programming (or just about anything else) from a book. But that doesn't mean we can't write about cycling (or programming) and can't learn things about cycling (and programming) by reading and writing. And that doesn't mean we can't write about it to share ideas and thoughts about it. That's how we can leverage knowledge and pass it on without having to be with each other physically to do it.

But once we decide to communicate about any human activity (be it cycling, programming, or anything other activity) in language, we almost always have to invent new terms, a jargon, to communicate clearly, effectively and unambiguously.

But if you have a need to deride my attempts to do so, go for it.

Helmet Head

After sleeping on it, I realize I cut out too much. Taking the "traveling fully within the lane" part out makes sense, because sharing lanes does not necessarily mean doing that, but excluding side-by-side sharing while moving at the same speed is not right either. After all, two (or more) cyclists can share a lane riding side-by-side, as can two motorcyclists. So, here's the latest revision:

Helmet Head

Okay, here is where we are with the Basic Definitions now.

If you think any of these definitions are inconsistent with common usage, please let me know. An example of usage that is inconsistent with any of these definitions would be helpful. Thanks.

Of course, what's important here is not the terminology, but the concepts associated with each of the terms; to understand them, to distinguish among them, and to be able to know when to use which one. But having each concept clearly defined, and distinct term associated with each, facilitates this process, particularly with respect to being able to discuss the concepts with each other, but also in how clearly we are able to think about them. Again, jargon is valuable in traffic cycling for the same reasons it is valuable in any other field.

RomSpaceKnight

In Ontario it is legal to pass on right hand side as long as it is safe to do so. Meaning if you don't get hit your ok. Rural highways mean that you must pass on right shoulder of road anyone turning left. This law allows cyclists to share lane all the way to the front of line.