self-driving cars and lane splitting [LWN.net]

self-driving cars and lane splitting

Posted Feb 25, 2013 6:26 UTC (Mon) by speedster1 (guest, #8143)
In reply to: self-driving cars and lane splitting by giraffedata
Parent article: ELC: Google learns to drive

Driving between lanes is definitely legal in California, but CHP does tell motorcyclists to keep within 10MPH of traffic; cruising along at 35mph when other traffic is stop-and-go would be considered unsafe driving

http://www.chp.ca.gov/programs/lanesplitguide.html

"Lane splitting in a safe and prudent manner is not illegal in the state of California.

The term lane splitting, sometimes known as lane sharing, filtering or white-lining, refers to the process of a motorcyclist riding between lanes of stopped or slower moving traffic or moving between lanes to the front of traffic stopped at a traffic light."

"Travel at a speed that is no more than 10 MPH faster than other traffic -- danger increases at higher speed differentials."

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self-driving cars and lane splitting

Posted Feb 25, 2013 7:07 UTC (Mon) by giraffedata (guest, #1954) [Link] (1 responses)

Driving between lanes is definitely legal in California,

Nope. The quotation from someone at the California Highway Patrol does uses the phrase "between lanes," but obviously doesn't mean that. If you read it in context, you see this author is using the term "lane" to refer to a line of cars. Yes, it's legal to drive between two lines of cars, but the normal definition of lane, and the one used in the motor vehicle code, is the pavement, not the vehicles on it. Strictly speaking, there isn't even any space between two adjacent lanes, but it could refer to straddling the border between the lanes. That's the way some motorcyclists do it, and it is not legal. A motorcycle, like any other vehicle, must drive entirely within a lane, following specific procedures to move from one to another. That's why the terms are "lane splitting" and "lane sharing" and not "lane ignoring."

As I understand it, the only thing about the California vehicle code that makes lane splitting legal is that there's nothing that says you can't, whereas in other jurisdictions there's something that says you can't pass a vehicle in the same lane. I.e. the California code doesn't give special license to a motorcylist to e.g. straddle two lanes.

self-driving cars and lane splitting

Posted Feb 25, 2013 8:35 UTC (Mon) by speedster1 (guest, #8143) [Link]

> The quotation from someone at the California Highway Patrol does uses the phrase "between lanes," but obviously doesn't mean that. If you read it in context, you see this author is using the term "lane" to refer to a line of cars.

"lane sharing, filtering or white-lining, refers to the process of a motorcyclist riding between lanes of stopped or slower moving traffic"

White-lining is rather suggestive synonym, don't you think? So if you're right about their use of terminology, then no, the context wasn't clear. White-lining sure sounds like "lane straddling" to me.

On the other hand, I don't see that staying on one side of the line or not makes much practical difference to the California drivers (human and computer) who need to watch out for these faster-moving motorcycles when changing lanes, so this wasn't really a key point -- I'm done trying to figure out what the policy really is, since I don't ride a motorcycle.