It’s something nearly every driver has experienced: that sudden surprise when a motorcyclist rides by in between the lanes on the freeway.
But lane splitting, which can be incredibly dangerous, is legal in some places.
Inside Edition discovered a lot of online videos that show the dangerous practice of collisions.
Trevor Machin from California was riding down the freeway when a driver collided with his bike and sent him sprawling onto pavement. While he lay there, stunned, his helmet GoPro camera captured the good Samaritans helping him. “Please don’t call my parents cause they’ll kill me,” he said.
The ambulance crew arrives and asks if he’s lane splitting. Machin replied that he was.
He says lane splitting, which is legal in California, is safer for motorcyclists to travel in heavy traffic.
“OK, I’m going to call you out on this a little bit. Isn’t the real reason that you lane split — isn’t it to go faster, so you can pass the cars?” Inside Edition chief investigative correspondent Lisa Guerrero asked him.
“Yea, you can get by quicker,” Machin stated.
He said that, despite his close encounter with death, he would not stop until the end.
“It’s so dangerous, dude. It’s so dangerous. I mean, you’ve been in a major accident because of this. Would you still lane split?” Guerrero asked.
“Absolutely. It’s hard for people that don’t ride. They don’t understand,” Machin stated.
New York state trooper Scottie Delorbe According to him, it is dangerous and illegal in New York. He added that it is challenging to pull motorcyclists across the street because of their speed.
“It’s tough for us to catch them, number one. They’re very fast,” Delorbe stated.
He was interviewing us when a lane-splitter passed by.
Only California makes lane splitting legal. It’s illegal in most states. However, some states allow it under certain traffic conditions.