Last reviewed: October 2026
Quick answer: Yes, lane splitting is legal in California. State law defines it as riding a two-wheeled motorcycle between rows of stopped or moving vehicles in the same lane. The CHP’s safety tips say to keep your speed and speed difference low, favor the far-left lanes, avoid splitting next to big vehicles, and never ride on the shoulder.
Lane splitting (sometimes called lane sharing) is part of everyday riding in California. A 2016 law, in effect since January 1, 2017, wrote it into the Vehicle Code. California isn’t the only state that allows some form of it. Minnesota has allowed low-speed lane splitting and filtering since July 1, 2025, and several states, including Utah, Arizona and Colorado, allow only filtering past stopped traffic at low speed. Lane splitting through moving traffic is illegal in those states. The rules differ a lot from state to state, so California habits don’t travel with you. Here’s what the law says, what the CHP recommends, and what the research shows.
Assembly Bill 51 was signed in 2016 and added Vehicle Code section 21658.1, which took effect January 1, 2017. It does two things:
The law doesn’t set a speed limit for lane splitting. You may have heard the old rule of “no more than 10 mph faster than traffic, and not when traffic is going over 30 mph.” Those numbers came from earlier CHP guidelines that were taken down after a complaint that they hadn’t gone through the formal rulemaking process. The CHP’s current tips don’t use a number.
Two related rules matter. Riding on the shoulder is illegal and is not lane splitting. And motorcycles may use carpool (HOV) lanes unless signs say otherwise, entering and leaving only where the lines allow it, never across double lines.
The obvious benefit is time: less sitting in stop-and-go traffic. On safety, a 2015 UC Berkeley study looked at California motorcycle crashes. It found that riders who were lane splitting when they crashed had lower rates of head, torso and fatal injury than other riders who crashed. The same study found that injury risk rose significantly once a rider was going more than 15 mph faster than surrounding traffic, and it described lane splitting as relatively safe when traffic was moving 50 mph or less and riders stayed within about 15 mph of it.
Keep the limits of that research in mind. The study couldn’t measure how likely you are to crash in the first place, and the lane splitters in it also tended to ride slower and wear better helmets. So the takeaway is that careful, low-speed lane splitting can be done safely, not that splitting is safe by default.
The CHP’s current guidance boils down to this:
If conditions feel wrong, stay in your lane and wait. The CHP is clear that every rider is responsible for their own decisions and safety.
Lane splitting is legal, and the CHP reminds drivers that it’s illegal to intentionally block or impede a motorcyclist in a way that could cause harm, or to open a door to impede one. Drivers in the far-left lane can help by moving to the left side of their lane to give riders room. Good habits help too: check mirrors and blind spots, and signal before changing lanes.
Lane splitting is a legal and useful part of riding in California, but it isn’t a right to ride fast between cars. Keep the speed difference small, pick your spots, stay visible, and skip it when conditions or your experience say no. Worn tires or tired brakes leave less room for error close to traffic, so a service check is worth it, and if you’re shopping for a commuter, here’s what we have in stock.
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