Danish motorcyclists: make it legal for motorcyclists to filter

Should so-called lane splitting or filtering – to ride between lanes of queuing or stagnant traffic on a motorcycle – be legal in Denmark? This is a question that has recently put Danish social media on fire.

The catalyst for the debate was a feature, which was brought by TV2 East Jutland, where the national association for motorcyclists MCTC’s director Mario Riewerts spoke positively about the idea of allowing motorcyclists to drive between the rows by e.g. queuing on the highways. “I think we should make it legal for motorcyclists to ride between lanes on multi-lane roads. On the one hand, it can get very hot for us to sit still like that on a summer’s day. But also because it helps keep the traffic moving,” he told TV2 East Jutland.

Although the debate and the waves have subsequently gone high among both proponents and opponents of the proposal for lane-splitting, the position of MCTC (a member of FEMA) is still the same, Mario Riewerts assures: “We believe that the Minister of Transport and then the parliament should look at a change in the law that allows motorcyclists to run in a regulated manner between the ranks when there is a standstill or very slow-moving traffic on multi-lane roads. As is the case in several other countries.”

Several organisations such as FDM (Denmark’s largest organisation for car owners) and the Council for Safe Traffic have also been out arguing against allowing lane-splitting. But it also doesn’t shake the MCTC’s position, Mario Riewerts points out: “They have used assumptions, predictions and opinions as ammunition in their arguments against a legislative change that would allow lane splitting. We at MCTC find this unfortunate, because it does not provide a proper basis for debate and dialogue when one side bases its arguments on facts, while the other relies on what it thinks, believes or feels. It is a bit like punching a pillow when the debate is being conducted on such fundamentally different rhetorical and communicative premises.”

Source: MCTC