Calling all Washington Motorcycle, Moped, and Motorscooter riders! We need your support to pass Motorcycle filtering this year in Washington!

Submitted by SquidTips t3_10l9g55 in Washington

2023 Motorcycle Filtering Bills: Senate Bill 5401 and Partner House Bill 1063

In the last 5 years Utah, Montana, and Arizona have passed laws allowing motorcycles to more flexibly utilize the roadway to increase riders safety and reduce traffic. This year we are looking to provide this same flexibility to Washington state riders with Senate Bill 5401.

We need to contact our representatives, ESPECIALLY if you are in ANY of the districts of the Transportation committee members provided below, and let them know you support SB5401, and ask them to request a hearing be scheduled in the transportation committee before the deadline of February 25th. Once you've done that yourself, ask friends, family, riding buddies, to do the same

Representatives on the Washington State Transportation committee

District Name Approximate District Location Relevant Senator
21 Lynnwood Liias
44 Snohomish, Marysville, Lake Stevens Lovick
42 Bellingham and surroundings Shewmake
14 Yakima King
6 Spokane Holy
49 Vancouver, WA Cleveland
31 Auburn, Bonney Lake, Enumclaw Fortunado
12 Wenatchee, chelam, Leavenworth Hawkins
47 Auburn, Covington Kauffman
40 Bellingham, Vernon, San Juan Islands Lovelett
35 Bremerton MacEwen
28 Tacoma, Lakewood Nobles
4 Spokane Valley Padden
46 Seattle U-District, Bothell Valdez

Bill Links:

FAQ

I'm new to the concept of motorcycle lane splitting/filtering, where can I get more information about this?

Here is a short video made by a Seattle rider who discusses his experience splitting and filtering in dense downtown traffic for nearly a decade without incident or receiving a citation. It goes into why lane splitting and rider education are crucial in reducing motorcycle fatalities on our streets: https://youtu.be/ws6l_7QVOO8

In 2015 UC Berkeley, in coordination with the California Highway patrol, conducted a study as part of a motorcycle safety campaign and found that lane splitting and filtering is as safe as normal motorcycle riding. This has been the foundation for states like CA, UT, MT, and AZ's to build a legal framework for motorcycles to ride more flexibly while improving rider safety: https://www.ots.ca.gov/wp-content/uploads/sites/67/2019/06/Motorcycle-Lane-Splitting-and-Safety-2015.pdf

I have an address, how do I know what district it's in?

https://app.leg.wa.gov/districtfinder/ - if it matches to one of the above districts, you're in business

How do I get people to "comment" on this bill exactly?

Go to this link. Then, click on "comment on this bill". You will then be invited to verify the district, fill out the address, e-mail, name, and position.

I know some people in one of these areas, but they don't ride

Not a problem! Senators listen to all their constituents' opinions very closely, rider or not. It's still possible to hammer home the motorcycle safety aspect regardless.

Where can I connect with other motorcycle riders to organize and push this legislation through?

Find us on the PNW Riders Discord

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Comments

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AnonyMouseLeo t1_j5vl5pn wrote

No! I refuse to support this and think it's awful and unsafe. No reason I should be able to drive between cars just because there is lots of traffic.

I have several buddies that really want this to happen and have tried extremely hard to get me to agree, but I don't. I'll just wait in traffic like everyone else. It's a fun but dangerous hobby.

https://wtsc.wa.gov/programs-priorities/motorcycles/

Motorcycles only comprise 3% of the road users in Washington State, but accounted for 15% of all fatalities and 19% of serious injuries in collisions between 2013 and 2017. About 1 in 5 motorcycle collisions result in serious injury or death and on average 75 riders die every year in collisions on Washington roads.

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SquidTips OP t1_j5vlsk8 wrote

What you’ve demonstrated here is that motorcycle fatalities are a problem on WA roads, and that is what lane splitting and filtering demonstrably to reduce.

By educating riders on when and how to safely filter through traffic, motorcycle accidents become less fatal, because they are happening at lower speeds. This reality is born out in the UC Berkeley study linked in the above post: > Lane-splitting motorcyclists were also injured much less frequently during their collisions. Lanesplitting riders were less likely to suffer head injury (9% vs 17%), torso injury (19% vs 29%), extremity injury (60% vs 66%), and fatal injury (1.2% vs 3.0%). Lane-splitting motorcyclists were equally likely to suffer neck injury, compared with non-lane-splitting motorcyclists.

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AnonyMouseLeo t1_j5vosms wrote

I have checked it out, like I said.

California has not released any motorcyclist death statistics, since 2019. If they wanted to prove the numbers went down they could easily do that. Yet they won't release the numbers specifically only for motorcycles? All vehicle related deaths went up in California through 2021. 😑

Here the wiki page about lane splitting and the research across different countries. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lane_splitting

No thanks. I don't believe it safer and obviously I am well aware of the topic.

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SquidTips OP t1_j5vz1e9 wrote

Some riders might not understand how to execute it safely, and I would never want anyone to be forced to do it, however I have done it for over 10 years in the Seattle area without a collision or a ticket.

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Designer_Hotel_5210 t1_j5x1g2c wrote

And this is why I would be against it. Some riders not understanding how to do it safely. Why pass a law where people won't know how to do it properly but will do it anyway because they save time on the road. Also just because you did it safely for 10 years means nothing because maybe you were just lucky. Also admitting to doing something that is illegal for 10 years is just another reason why I wouldn't vote for it. While the majority of motorcycle riders follow the law there is a sizable amount who don't and just cause problems and are rude to everyone else.

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SquidTips OP t1_j5x9l55 wrote

I mean, speed limits don't stop everyone from speeding, so I'm guessing the riders you don't like aren't prevented from splitting now, so you're really just punishing the most diligent and law abiding right now.

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muppethero80 t1_j5xkw78 wrote

Not everyone knows how to ride a motorcycle safely. So they require a license to drive one so they know to do so safely. Will this lane splitting require a new license to show the rider understand how to do so safely? No you say? Then no

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TheRealRotidder t1_j5xb9xv wrote

I’ve owned and been riding motorcycles for 40 years. Started at 18 on a street 250. Currently own a full size touring bike and a 1200 dual sport. ~400k miles on two wheels. A Seattle native, I’ve riding PNW roads for decades. I’ve also ridden multiple cross country weeks-long trips throughout the US, so I have a lot of experience in many different driving ‘cultures’. There is no way I would split lanes, not the way folks in cars drive, particularly now with all of the distractions of phones and ‘infotainment’ systems. Plus cars, on the whole are much quieter on the inside, which reduces situational awareness of drivers. As a car driver, I’m already hyper alert to the shenanigans yahoos on the road are up to. There’s no way I want to add impatient motorcyclists to the mix.

Stats about less severe injuries due to lane-splitting are highly misleading. The severity of any single collision may be lower, due primarily to the fact that the involved vehicles are moving in the same direction, which reduces the forces imparted on the vehicles during collision events. But the overall number of accidents is likely just as high, if not higher. A motorcycle properly occupying a full lane of travel on a single direction, high density roadway is far more visible to other motorists than if it were continuously operating in those other vehicles’ blind spots. Add the fact that 50% of those blind spots are on the passenger sides of vehicles, which reduces visibility even further.

Lastly, let’s talk about financial responsibility for collisions. California, which is often cited as a ‘successful’ example of lane-splitting, has had no-fault insurance for over 30 years (source: me - I lived in CA for a time). They also have very high insurance rates because of that. Washington is an ‘at fault’ state. How would you like to have to argue to your insurance company that you aren’t at fault when a motorcyclist sideswipes you? Or claims that you moved into him/her as they passed you when you began a properly signaled lane change to moveout of the lane you were already in? Or, as a motorcyclist, argue that the exact opposite of those scenarios was the case? Or, have no-fault insurance and watch your rates skyrocket?

As a rider, I would consider using a shoulder if it were legal, safe and prudent to do so. But in the mix with other inattentive and/or downright hostile drivers? Hard pass.

Edit: My personal experience with California insurance is no longer correct, as pointed out by another poster. California is considered an “at-fault” state like Washington. My position about having to argue who is at fault remains as I originally expressed it

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craptastical214m t1_j5zjkyd wrote

> California, which is often cited as a ‘successful’ example of lane-splitting, has had no-fault insurance for over 30 years (source: me - I lived in CA for a time).

This statement is incorrect, I also lived in California for a time and did a quick sanity check Google search to back up my memories of the insurance situation there. My rates in the SF Bay Area vs my rates in Vancouver, WA were not notably different. Maybe a bit higher in CA, but not by much. The rates may be high in some parts of California, but it's not because of no-fault insurance and motorcycle lane-splitting.

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TheRealRotidder t1_j60cqgj wrote

Looks like my info, based on personal experience, is outdated. I’ve updated my post correspondingly. Thank you for pointing out the error. I don’t mind being corrected when I’m wrong.

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mh-99 t1_j5wnat2 wrote

I used to live in Japan in an area where you would see motorcycles going through lanes all the time and staying inbetween them. It was extremely stressful to drive around them and I had more than one close calls from a motorcycle sneaking out of seemingly nowhere

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kwiknkleen t1_j5w8hvr wrote

My question is why should motorcyclists not have to wait in traffic like everyone else?

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Rocketgirl8097 t1_j60d08r wrote

Agreed. And how many months of the year are they really riding? Mainly summer months. So we switch everything around for the minority that have minority usage of the road? No.

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SquidTips OP t1_j5w9adb wrote

To answer that question requires first asking, what are roads for anyway?

The answer I think most people would give is that they are a logistical investment that our community has made in order to move humans from one place to another across our communities. That seems to be the logic behind creating commuter and bus only lanes, to proiritize throughput over individual 'Fairness'.

From this lens, lane splitting demonstrably reduces traffic by allowing greater throughput. It also incentivizes more motorcycle usage which creates a positive feedback loop for reducing traffic.

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thecatsofwar t1_j5wwkw0 wrote

Or, and hear me out, motorcyclists can be adults like the people in cars and wait their turn like everyone else. Motorcyclists aren’t special and don’t deserve a free pass to weave dangerously because waiting hurts their feelings.

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MayorEricBlazecetti t1_j5x0il4 wrote

Some motorcycles are air cooled and literally will overheat and die if sitting in traffic for too long.

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thecatsofwar t1_j6e3re5 wrote

So? The driver’s poor choices to buy a vehicle with a bad design shouldn’t give them special privileges on the road.

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MayorEricBlazecetti t1_j6f9keu wrote

By that logic, a car is a bad design and the driver chose it, so they can sit in traffic while motorcycles slip through.

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thecatsofwar t1_j6fvq0s wrote

I’m still waiting for the part where making a stupid purchase of a motorcycle means a person gets special privileges to drive like manics.

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MayorEricBlazecetti t1_j6gtcp1 wrote

What about lane splitting is driving like a maniac? I truly want to understand you.

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kwiknkleen t1_j5wypji wrote

I just don’t see you having this attitude if you weren’t a motorcycle rider. If the US would get over its abiding love of the motor vehicle and embrace alternative transportation, ie buses, trains etc. our roads probably wouldn’t be nearly as congested.

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SquidTips OP t1_j5x9x3q wrote

I own a house, but I have consistently voted for every increase in housing taxes to support the government and services it provides.

Every law that passes shouldn't NEED to help EVERY person, that's not how you build just and equitable systems.

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M4jorP4nye t1_j5x801z wrote

Someone went flying up 16 today between my trailer, and the van next to me, we were doing 60. The van swerved away and almost over corrected into me because he came up so fast (and still revving) and almost pinched the guy between us. If the guy in front of the van had changed lanes we would be sitting there waiting for the emt to scrape him off the road still. Lane splitting is dangerous, motorcyclists already get HOV use, and there is no economical way to make sure everyone that’s lane splitting knows how.

I know people who drove under the influence for 10+ years and never wrecked, doesn’t mean we should make it legal, or ok that they were doing it.

Edit… autocorrected words -_-

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SquidTips OP t1_j5x9jpm wrote

I mean, speed limits don't stop everyone from speeding, so I'm guessing the riders you don't like aren't prevented from splitting now, so you're really just punishing the most diligent and law abiding right now.

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M4jorP4nye t1_j5x9zv0 wrote

Lane splitting is automatically going to make the motorcyclists go faster than cars, plus idiots in cars already trying to weave in and out with no signals. I just don’t see this going well.

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SquidTips OP t1_j5xbh9i wrote

Hopefully we make more motorcycle riders like in Europe, and that reduces congestion for all!

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PiningForTheFnords t1_j6253tc wrote

Thanks for posting and making us aware it’s time to bug our useless lazy reps. Don’t listen to the haters and people who don’t understand why filtering is safer - keep up the good work.

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lambrettist t1_j625m6m wrote

I live in the u District! Awesome! Please let this pass. All the losers here against it are privileged Carbrain nut cases. Sorry.

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Crazyboreddeveloper t1_j63ycae wrote

Hell no.

I ride a motorcycle and don’t want filtering. It’s dangerous AF. The kind of people who want lane filtering are exactly the same jerk riders who would abuse it.

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Rocketgirl8097 t1_j60ckm9 wrote

The people who ride bikes in Tri-Cities are crazy people. Very few do I ever see driving responsibly. Usually driving 20-30 miles over the limit and are going so fast you can't hear them until they are passing you. Not sure they will care about any laws, they don't care about them now.

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craptastical214m t1_j5vl6z6 wrote

Really hoping this passes! I've been really happy to see other states start implementing this. Would be a huge boost to safety while riding in heavy traffic.

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