If you're driving a motorcycle, in most states, it's illegal to ride on the dividing line between lanes, a practice which is called "lane splitting". Here in California, however, that's perfectly legal. It's happened more than one that I'm driving on the highway in heavy traffic and suddenly, without warning, a motorcycle zips between me and the car in the lane next to me.

I come from Michigan, where this was not a legal way to drive a motorcycle, so it seems dangerous. My gut reaction is to believe that permitting this makes drivers on the road less safe, and that it would result in an increase of fatalities on the highways. Not all motorcycle drivers do it, but enough do that it's gotten my attention. I haven't gathered the data on fatalities to give you an official report, because the dangers of lane splitting are not what I'm curious about.

What if, ignoring the risks, you suddenly made lane splitting legal in Michigan, a state that doesn't currently permit it? Would lots of motorcyclists sudden take the opportunity to go out lane splitting just because they're suddenly allowed to, or would most of them not do it just because their first reaction will be similar to mine: that driving this was just doesn't seem safe?

Even given hard data and statistics, people are going to react emotionally. I wonder how much of this instilled sense of what is safe to do and what we're afraid to do is driven by what the government has sanctioned as legal? The voice of the people is supposed to drive public policy, but to what extent is the voice of the people just parroting what our body of laws tells us?