Looks like my info, based on personal experience, is outdated.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.

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

To disburse sand or salt from the dump bed. Some just do it by gravity, some have mechanical spreader attachments to ‘fling’ the material across the lane(s)