Brake lights as far as the eye can see are a common sight in Hampton Roads. Most readers from the area will be familiar with coming to a complete stop in traffic on Hampton Roads’ many bridges, tunnels and crowded city streets. One side effect of this phenomenon is motorcyclists being left in a vulnerable position.
According to a 2015 California study, the most common form of a multi-vehicle motorcycle accident is the motorcyclist being rear-ended at a standstill, leading to head and back injuries or even death. This same study noted that when lane filtering is allowed, the chances of injury or death in such crashes decrease appreciably.
Lane filtering allows a motorcycle to travel between two lanes of traffic moving in the same direction when other traffic in these lanes is stopped or moving at a low rate of speed. This practice is a compromise between the European-style lane splitting adopted in 2016 by California and the current laws of the land that do not allow for lane sharing of any type.
This is the middle ground that several states seem to have settled on, including Arizona, Montana and Utah. Each of these states has placed reasonable restrictions on the circumstances in which filtering is allowed. These restrictions include which types of roads the action is allowed on, the speeds at which the motorcycle is permitted to travel in relation to surrounding traffic, and only allowing filtering between travel lanes. These laws ensure that motorcyclists are not pressed between two cars when rear-ended while still ensuring reckless activity remains illegal.
The commonwealth should follow this template of allowing reasonable lane filtering. As a rider myself, I have had someone approach from the rear at high speed on several occasions, and each time, I was lucky that I was able to escape onto the shoulder or the individual was able to stop themselves just short of my taillight. Another benefit of filtering puts motorcycles, which generally have greater levels of acceleration, out ahead of other traffic from a red light, putting them in “clean air,” reducing interactions between riders and drivers.
Virginia would make a good candidate for lane filtering as it would be the first state east of the Mississippi to adopt this type of legislation. The commonwealth also has a wide selection of roads, from the urban sprawl of Northern Virginia, Hampton Roads and Richmond to more rural communities, all of which could benefit in various ways.
A point of concern for drivers may be when motorcycles are moving between vehicles. However, this maneuver will be conducted at low speed and after comprehensive operator training, which will further mitigate risk to all on the road. As lane filtering only happens at low speeds or full-stop, the maneuver would continue to be illegal at higher speeds and on roads not conducive to safe execution. This should alleviate the concerns of car drivers that a lane filtering law would be used to promote reckless driving.
Movement on this issue has already been attempted as the Virginia House of Delegates saw a lane filtering bill proposed in the 2022 legislative session. This bill, HB838, was voted to be tabled by the transportation committee in a 6-0 vote. While legislators seem to be aware of the proposed solution to these possibly deadly rear-end crashes, there was a lack of interest in bringing it to a floor vote in the 2022 session. The next legislative session is always around the corner, so reach out to your delegates and let them know that a bill to allow motorcycle lane filtering should be a priority as it deserves proper debate.
Devan Allen of Hampton is a motorcycle rider and a senior at Old Dominion University, studying enterprise cybersecurity and information systems and technology with a concentration in network engineering.
