#filtering

Photo by Kevin Wing

In crowded metropolises around the world, two-wheeled motorists flow through city streets packed to the brim with four-wheeled unfortunates impatiently waiting as traffic slows to a crawl en route to their destination. For those who haven’t come to terms with spending hours on end in their cages only to cover meager distances, traffic can be an incredibly frustrating experience. I’m getting myself worked up about it just typing this! 

With Motorcycle.com HQ based in sunny southern California, we know a thing or two about lane-sharing. Heck, for the first nine years that I lived in California, my only mode of transportation was motorcycles. It’s a much faster way to get around. Moving from the cornfields of Illinois with its single-lane highways and sparse traffic to the sprawling population-dense metropolis of Los Angeles was a culture shock to my 19-year old sensibilities and the idea of lane-sharing my way through it was daunting, to say the least. I was timid the first time. Fast forward 11 years and I now feel safer and more comfortable sharing lanes than I do sitting in the middle of them.

For many new riders, the thought of riding on the highway for the first time can be frightening – right up there with public speaking and bungee jumping. The higher speeds and sea of cars around you can seem intimidating, but riding on the highway doesn’t have to be scary. In fact, highway riding is probably safer than scrambling around on surface roads, since everybody’s going the same direction at more or less the same speed, and, critically, there’s no cross traffic to dodge. Before you go tackling the freeway with confidence, here are a few tips we’ve gathered over the years for how to ride on the highway safely.

Toronto, Canada, may soon become the next place in North America to allow lane splitting. Toronto’s city council recently approved a motion that could allow motorcycles to lane filter between lanes.