Lane-Splitting Coming To Texas?

You're stuck in traffic again after a long, highly stressful day at work. The boss has been riding you hard to make an impossible deadline, while at the same time adding new requirements and restrictions to the proposal. You just want to get home and relax, but like everyone else on the highway every day, you're just inching along, one car-length at a time, radiator and temper about to pop from the heat and frustration, when you hear a familiar, but out-of-place rumble. Optimistically, you believe it's a motorcycle cop, picking his way through the log-jam to find and remove the source of the roadway's constipation. Instead, as the source of the burbling motor comes into the range of your side-view mirror, you see a grinning bearded man wrapped in black leather, seemingly unencumbered by your plight, riding between the overheating cars and drivers.

Do you:

1. Mentally congratulate him on the choice of transportation and the reduced emissions and strain it places on our congested roadways and consumption of fuel-oil? After all, motorcycles take up less space, get better gas-milage, and statistically carry the same number of passengers as most every other vehicle during rush-hour commutes.
2. Find yourself day-dreaming of wind-in-the-hair adventures while exploring the scenic back-roads of this great state of ours?
3. Cut that "sombeach" off by moving over close the gap between you and the car next to you? After all, why should he be able to move freely by, when you're stuck in traffic?

I'm not sure how I feel about this, since I rarely have occasion to get stuck in traffic anymore, due to the hours that I work. On one hand, I celebrate any legislation that further recognizes motorcycling as a valuable tool in reducing congestion on our roadways. However, I think there will be a lot of irritated people, ignorant of the new law, trying to prevent a bike from legally (if this gets passed) riding up between cars during a traffic-jam. Worse, I can see the possibility of angry commuters taking actions that can endanger motorcyclists taking advantage of the new law.

Heretofore, it has been illegal in every state of the union except California to split lanes of traffic. If this makes it into law, there would have to be a massive public-education campaign.

I, for one, won't be waiting in line to be the first to excercise any newly-minted right to squeeze by any overheated commuters stuck in traffic and jealously guarding their lane-position...

The proposed law:

79R517 JRJ-DBy:
Griggs
H.B. No. 1522
A BILL TO BE ENTITLED AN ACT

relating to the operation and movement of motorcycles during periods of traffic congestion.

BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:

SECTION 1. Section 545.060, Transportation Code, is amended by amending
Subsection (a) and adding Subsection (e) to read as follows: (a) An
operator on a roadway divided into two or more clearly marked lanes for traffic:
(1) shall drive as nearly as practical entirely within a single lane,
except as provided by Subsection (e); and
(2) may not move from the lane unless that movement can be made safely. (e) The operator of a motorcycle may operate the motorcycle for a safe distance between lanes of traffic moving in the same direction during periods of traffic
congestion if the operator:

1. is at least 21 years old;
2. has successfully completed a motorcycle operator training and safety course under Chapter 662;
3. is covered by a health insurance plan providing the operator with at least $10,000 in medical benefits for injuries incurred as a result of an accident while operating a motorcycle; and
4. operates the motorcycle:
   (A) at a speed not more than five miles per hour over the speed of the
   other traffic; (B) in traffic that is moving at a speed of 20 miles per
   hour or less; and (C) in a location other than a school crossing zone or
   other than a location where the posted speed limit is 20 miles per hour or less.

SECTION 2. This Act takes effect September 1, 2005.

**UPDATE** Unfortunately, with school finance reform and a host of other things on Texas lawmakers' plates, this bill never made it out of committee.