Shas­tri Boodan

Mo­tor­cy­clists are be­ing warned it is il­le­gal to dri­ve in the mid­dle of the high­way, in be­tween lanes.

Days ago, mo­tor­cy­cle rid­ers reached out to Guardian Me­dia com­plain­ing law en­force­ment au­thor­i­ties were pre­vent­ing them from prac­tis­ing what is called "lane split­ting". TTPS' Sgt Brent Bat­son said not on­ly is it against the law but it's al­so dan­ger­ous.

Bat­son said, " Over the past five years mo­tor­cy­clists have ac­count­ed for 6% (29) of road traf­fic deaths which in­di­cates the in­her­ent pres­ence of risk in the road net­work. The Mo­tor Ve­hi­cles and Road Traf­fic Act (MVR­TA) Chap­ter 48:50 does not cur­rent­ly per­mit the prac­tice known as “lane split­ting” by Mo­tor­cy­cle or Class 1 Op­er­a­tors as the law gives them (the mo­tor­cy­clists) the space in a lane of traf­fic as equal to that of a mo­tor ve­hi­cle."

Sec­tion 77. (1) of the Act states “It shall not be law­ful for more than two per­sons to ride abreast on a road ei­ther up­on mo­tor­cy­cles or up­on bi­cy­cles...”. Bat­son warned mo­tor­cy­clists who choose to utilise the road­way di­vid­ing lines as a rid­ing lane, do so at risk to them­selves and oth­er road users since many dri­vers of­ten change lanes with­out check­ing their mir­rors first which is when mo­tor­cy­clists are most vul­ner­a­ble.

Damion Richards, spokesman for the lo­cal deal­er of Hero Mo­to­corp, said how­ev­er, pres­sure by the au­thor­i­ties to pre­vent lane split­ting places rid­ers at in­creased health risks if they sit among the ex­ces­sive ex­haust dur­ing high traf­fic pe­ri­ods.

Trans­port Com­mis­sion­er Clive Clarke said he is wel­com­ing dis­cus­sions from in­ter­est­ed par­ties on this mat­ter. Clarke said en­force­ment of­fi­cers are en­sur­ing the laws are fol­lowed when it comes to traf­fic signs for any ve­hi­cles. He said, "The white line on the road can be con­sid­ered as a traf­fic sign be­cause it is an en­ti­ty that is used to guide you on how to dri­ve."

An­drew Taitt, spokesman for mo­tor­cy­cle rides, said rid­ers will put for­ward a pro­pos­al to the Min­is­ter of Trans­port to have the laws amend­ed.