Riding in California.

[FreepZ]

I've been watching this video of Susanna Schick (from Hollywood Electrics) and Mark Miller (rider for MotoCzysz) riding a couple of Zeros in Los Angeles, CA:



(That video is part of an interview. Here is the full interview, for those who are interested.)

Starting from about 1m40s 2m40s on the video, the two of them start a long string of right side passes while traveling on a narrow winding road. Isn't that very dangerous? Is that something common in California, since lane sharing is legal there? Do folks with larger bikes do that too? (The Zero looks pretty narrow to me.)

I'm not a very experienced rider, and the the closest that I get to lane sharing is to ride on another biker's 5 o'clock (i.e. next to them, but slightly behind).

Perhaps it makes sense in Los Angeles, with all the heavy traffic that they have there, but it seems pretty risky to me.

What do you think?

[Richard230]

Those passes looked legal to me. They appeared to be riding on a 4-lane road, with two lanes in each direction. They were in the "slow" lane near the curb, but that is still a through lane and the fact that they were passing cars on the right is legal and safe just about anywhere, I would think. It appeared that the cars that they passed were stopped in lane no. 1, perhaps because they were waiting for the opposite traffic to clear before making a left turn.

However, it is true that you have to be careful when making a pass like that as one of the cars might have suddenly decided to move to the right in order to pass the stopped cars ahead of it. It is always a good idea to slow down and put some distance between you and the adjacent lane - just in case.

[FreepZ]

Did I say 1m40s? Oops. I meant 2m40s. Yeah, the passes at 1m40s didn't look dangerous at all.

[Richard230]

Looking further into the video of their ride, I would certainly agree with you. Those passes later on do not look safe or legal. Bad, bad, bad - in my opinion.