The purpose of this petition is to allow motorcyclists in the state of Massachusetts to, in limited circumstance, be permitted to share single lanes with other motorists. We are calling for regulation similar to that in the state of California which allows for this practice under the following conditions:
- Travel no faster than 10 mph faster than the vehicles you%u2019re lane-sharing with.
- Merge back in with the traffic when they reach 30-35 mph.
- Never exceed the speed limit.
- Lane-sharing between lanes #1 and #2 is preferred. (#1 being the %u201Cfast%u201D or %u201Cinside%u201D lane)
- Stay, more or less, in one lane or the other. Excessive meandering may get you cited.
Source http://www.laneshare.com/
This is needed for a myriad of reasons, the most vital being safety. Motorcycles are low visibility vehicles due to there particularly small cross section. This leads to a reduced distance (and subsequent reaction time) from when a motorist first sights the motorcycle vs. a car. This makes sitting in traffic a dangerous activity for those who ride especially in a time when the commonwealth has yet to enact a ban on the use of cell phones while driving a motor vehicle. Secondly motorcycles are of a different breed than automobiles. With the high performance nature of the engines, and a significant portion of them being air cooled, the possibility of overheating the engine (as well as the rider) in bumper to bumper traffic is greater. If the engine has to be shut down that leads to a possible congestion causing situation until the motorcycle can be cleared from the path of traffic. The purpose of this is not to allow motorcycles an unfair advantage over other motorists but rather to increase the safety and reliability of this form of transportation.
