I don't think it will make any difference in our part of the world. What percentage of vehicles on the road at any given time are bikes really?
In the GTA I'd go as far as to suggest bikes are statisticly insignificant.
Allowing the few bikes out there to lane-split/filter isn't going to put much of a dent in congestion.
I'm not against it, but holding up lane splitting as the cure for congestion is a little far fetched.
Personally... I wouldn't do it. I'd be fearful of cagers abruptly switching lanes in from of me.
I'd sooner ride up the shoulder...
All of the above. We don't matter here in Ontario - the "average" rider in most Provinces (perhaps BC aside due to their climate) only average 1000K per year, and ride from May through October at most - 6 months. Many riders average less than 1000K a year (simply look at the used market odometer readings) and only during the hot months, so say June through September - 4 months.
So yes, unlike US states where motorcycling is a 10-12 month of the year reality, we ARE statistically invisible, and asking the general public to make a polar shift in their behaviour and expectations around motorcycles based on a 4-6 month period of expecting to see motorcycles on the road to begin with is unlikely IMHO.
Years after it went into law people still don't know that they're supposed to change lanes away from stopped emergency vehicles. Many claim ignorance or simply refuse to do it since it's an inconvenience. Hell...people can't even maintain their own damn lane through double lefts. My point is...what's the chance that if filtering/splitting became legal tomorrow we still won't see riders getting injured by clueless cagers a decade from now who take the "screw you, you're not getting past me" mentality we all see and experience routinely on our roads, or just blindly don't care?
We all know the motorcycle ultimately loses in these debates.
It also needs to remove all of the "fluff" e.g. "Moving air to keep them cool", or "the engine will seize".
Yes, there was some grasping at straws in there - at least the narrator used the term "arguably" in several of the statements. I think the congestion arguments are utterly ridiculous as well.
Like others, I can see benefits in splitting/filtering IF the planets aligned and all the below was reality:
- No riders abused it. Good luck with that - ever been filtered by a squid doing 50K through stopped traffic at a light? I have.
- Cagers actually respected the reasoning behind it instead of intentionally changing lanes to block you in an effort to satisfy their "you're not getting ahead of me" mentality.
- Cagers were actually properly educated about both being legal. Again, good luck with that - efforts to educate people about existing (far more important) laws fall on deaf ears as it is, something that only matters for 4-6 months of year at best is a total lost cause.