your welcome
“Who appointed you pace-car?”
Lane-splitting on motorcycles is legal too. 
I was just in L.A. last week and once again experienced this insane behavior.
I’ve ridden a motorcycle for nearly 30 years and have never done this. I can’t believe that motorcyclists aren’t daily crushed or knocked off their bikes by oblivious drivers who didn’t notice a crotch rocket coming through the two or three feet between cars at 10 or 20 mph faster than traffic. I also can’t believe it’s legal.
Then again, I don’t have to deal with L.A. traffic every day.
From the Michigan Secretary of State page 81
“On a two-lane freeway, drive in the right lane except when passing, exiting to the lleft, allowing another vehicle to merge onto the freeway, or when lanes are fully occupied with heavily congested traffic.”
However, for 3 lane freeways, “you may drive in any lane”, also on p. 81.
In Virginia you may drive in any lane regardless of whether you are passing, but the law says that if another driver approaching you from the rear uses an audible signal (i.e., horn) or flashes lights, that you must move to the right to allow him to pass. I don’t have the cite but this has been quoted many times in the Dr. Gridlock traffic column in the Washington Post.
I read an issue of CA Biker (a free zine at bike shops) in 1993 that said that the California Highway Patrol conducted a study and found that lane-splitting is “not especially dangerous”.
Sometimes we are. You may want to see this thread.
The Roadshow column in the S.J. Mercury News printed this transcript (from memory):
Driver calls 911, says, “Get the Highway Patrol! I’m being tailgated! I’m being high-beamed!”
911 Dispatcher: “Is there a lane to your right? Is is clear of vehicles?”
Driver: “Yes!”
911: “Turn on your right turn signal; verify it still safe to change lanes; then do so.”
This reminds me of a mighty fine piece of driving I once saw a highway cop do. At the time, I thought it was insanity, but afterwards I realised it was actually the safest thing to do.
Seeing as I’m in a good mood, I’ll mirror left and right, and translate KPH to MPH for the 'merkins :
A busy four-lane suburban road (two lanes each way). I’m driving in the left lane at about 35. In my mirror, I see a cop doing about 70, sirens and lights blaring. Not chasing anyone I could see, but obviously going somewhere in a real hurry. Like most of my fellow motorists, I pull over to the right lane. I am now the leading car in the right lane, but ahead a little is a car still sticking steadfastly to the left (probably on the bloody phone or changing a CD or something). Plenty of distance in front of me for the cop to “thread the needle”, overtake this car on the right, and be on his way.
Now, on the other side of the road, there is an oncoming car approaching in the fast lane, and nobody in the kerbside lane. What does the cop do? Instead of taking the clear path on the correct side of the road, he crosses over and aims on a head-on collision course with an oncoming car.
If you think about it, it’s quite a good piece of driving, and also very counterintuitive. It’d be very hard to force yourself to do what he did, I think. As I said, he was doing about twice the speed of the other cars on the road. If he pulled right, and the driver of the car blocking him finally looked up from the CD player and pulled right too at the last minute, it’d be a mother of a rear-end accident (a relative 35 miles per hour). Instead, the cop chose a collision course, which might leave the oncoming driver with a few frayed nerves, but he made sure the kerbside oncoming lane was free, and knew that driver would have to change lanes.
I’m declaring this one asked and answered.