French ban on motorbike lane filtering under review
 

Following well-organised and extensive protest rides by bikers on 20 February, the French press is reporting that the road safety agency Securite Routiere will launch a new trial to reassess the safety of the practice.

Lane filtering was never officially legal in France and a five-year trial from 2016 to 2021 concluded it was unsafe following 16 fatal accidents during the period.

After the recent protests it has been decided that at least 12 departments in France will run experiments from June this year to gauge the safety of allowing motorbikes to pass between queuing lanes of traffic in some conditions.

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As a personal comment, it was always an amazement to me that the very high-speed filtering on Paris' Boulevard Périphérique didn't result in dozens of deaths each year.

Think Le Prince Noir might disagree with that last bit Tim......suprised he lasted as long as he did to be honest

Blimey he is still on YouTube....who needs traction control and abs when ur a nutter :mchappy:

I used to think exactly the same about riding in London in the 80's /90's, at the height of the courier period. However good I got at filtering there was always a queue of frustrated 'time is money' couriers behind me. Traffic regulations, speed limits (pre cameras), courtesy, none of it mattered. They'd be on the pavements, knocking off wing mirrors, scattering pedestrians at crossings; anything to get there quicker. How some of them survived I'll never know. Or maybe they didn't.

Mr Scott survived. Having read his book I am not quite sure how, but he did!

And that was just the cycle couriers...

I was a DR in London in the 80's for about 4 years and I'm afraid that when I'm in traffic, that urge to get through it as fast as possible still kicks in.
If filtering was made illegal and enforced in the UK, I think I would probably stop riding.

Or relocate :mchappy:

The whole point of a motorbike is to get through cage traffic quickly. I was on my way to the BMW rally at Gamische-Partenkirchen making fairly good progress filtering through a 'stau' (traffic jam) in Germany when I heard klaxons behind and a police car was pushing through chasing me. I had no idea it was illegal and I was relieved of €60.

The police also tried to get me on having knobblies on my 1200GS (due to the speed rating) but I insisted the bike was sold with them.

Wouldnt and hasnt stopped me doing it mind :mchappy:

It has occurred to me many times over the last few years that there is money to be made out East, servicing Western Europe's petrolheads. Haven't done anything about it yet.....

We passed by Munich, one year, and one of the Autobahns was closed - the traffic was horrendous. We started filtering, not knowing the law and as we went through other German bikes started following on behind us - we couldn’t understand why they were sitting in standstill traffic. Anyway, at one point some German police were steaming down the hard shoulder with sirens blasting, we ignored them and carried on whilst all the German bikes pulled back into the traffic. Needless to say they had bigger problems and we carried on unmolested.

We found out about the non-filtering laws a few years later, which is another story - don’t get me started on Austrian car drivers.
We’ve always thought that Germany would be a nice country to live in but unfortunately we’ve crossed it off our list.

Filtering has been reintroduced in 21 out of about 100 Departments in France but with strict conditions. Only on dual carriageways or autoroutes, only when other vehicles are stationary, and only where the speed limit is 70 kph or higher.

Connexion France article: https://www.connexionfrance.com/Fren...ch-departments