I am wondering if anyone ever got a ticket for lane splitting? I was pulled over yesterday (I was riding between lanes on the highway and passed a police car thinking the traffic was too dense for them to ever catch up.) However, they did catch up with me on the exit light (I do not know how, I guess the cop drove on the shoulder all that time keeping an eye on me.) There I was standing on the exit light and saw the lights approaching. I could have dissapeared by going back on the highway but I guess at the moment did not have the guts. The cop (3 in the car) asks me if I know why I got stopped. I knew the ticket was comming anyway so with a heavy heart I replied,- "For lane spliting officer, and I am very sorry." He gets my documents and asks to see if my helmet is DOT certified. My helmet is certified but I have a reflective sticker that covers it. At this point I am thinking about 2 tickets. To make it short the cop lets me go without any tickets. He checked my documents on computer and tells me ".. use your brains and just do not do it in front of us (lane splitting)" I was both grateful and completely puzzeled. Can a biker get away just like that from NYC cops?! The only explanation I have is that I am not a sports biker and was riding a Savage.

One way or another, that is a good story...

I have wondered what cops tend to do about this sort of thing...

Lots of city cops aren't interested in writing traffic tickets.  They only make the stop to see if you're drunk or have an outstanding warrant.  Plenty of them will just write warnings if you're clean otherwise.  They've got bigger fish to fry.  Being polite never hurts, either.  

State troopers are a different story.  Most of them write speeding tickets all day long, and not much else.  Both groups have statistics (not quotas) to maintain.

Sorry David .... but several of my friends are police officers and they very DEFINATELY have quotas to maintain . They won't publicly say they do because it's technically against the law but if at the month's end they aren't up to their numbers they will certainly hear about it. Haven't you ever noticed that about the 26 th or so you start seeing people pulled over and " speed traps" everywhere?!

Hi, just seeing this.

Kikuchiyo, where were you doing this? I see bikers all the time lane splitting on the LIE and the BQE. I won't do it during moving traffic, but I will move up in totally stopped traffic. And often the cars have no regard for the lanes, and the cars are lane splitting as well, and so you've got to stay alert and out of the way and safe so sometimes it is actually a safety measure to do it then. Sounds weird, but true.

Anyway, just wondering. I know that riding the shoulder lane is a big no-no and I see cops pull cars over for that fairly often.

There is the quota thing also, I do believe that. Anyway, ride safe.

Gerry

kikuchiyo, I rarely take the GCP, it's just not my usual route to anything, but by the airport I think there are more cops for security, so they might be on the lookout for terrorism, a biker scooting inbetween traffic could be thought of as possible terrorist activity? I dunno, but be careful!

And try to be on time, I suffer from that same malady, ha ha, I am always the last one to arrive someplace, work, family gatherings, etc. It is a curse!! But I'm working on it, because riding the bike is fun, so stretch out the fun and leave earlier. Darn, but then that fun stretches out and then I'm still late. Funny how that works out.

Gerry