I’ve been a motorcycle rider for nearly 30 years. And in the Northwest, that means riding in all kinds of conditions. From torrential downpours where you can barely see the pale lights of the bike or car in front of you, to scorching deserts that bring 130-degree heat up from the black top, to bumper-to-bumper stop-and-go rush-hour congestion that leaves your clutch hand and forearm aching.
But this spring and summer I’ve seen a new riding condition that seems to be giving me genuine cause for concern. I’m talking, of course, about lane splitting.
Revive I-5 has been underway for more than half a year, with the construction projected to last through all of 2027. The increasing number of lane splitters I see during morning and afternoon commutes tells me that as hard as this commute is on the residents of the Pacific Northwest, it won’t be too long before we see a complete stoppage from a lane-splitting cyclist getting caught in a bad situation that costs all of us time and maybe the rider their life…