On Aug. 7, Colorado officially legalized the practice of lane-filtering throughout the state — allowing riders to filter through stopped traffic at 15 miles per hour or less.
SB24-079 permits motorcycles to overtake or pass another motor vehicle if traffic is stopped in surrounding lanes. Colorado will join Utah, Montana and Arizona as states that permit lane-filtering, with Minnesota’s own lane-filtering bill slated to take effect on July 1, 2025. Lane-splitting is also legal in California, allowing riders to move through slow-moving traffic in addition to stopped traffic, which differs from Colorado’s law which only permits motorcyclists to pass when the flow of traffic is stopped.
To legally filter, the road must have lanes wide enough to pass safely, the motorcyclist must maintain speeds of 15 miles per hour or less, and “conditions permit prudent operation of the motorcycle while overtaking or passing.”
Motorcyclists must pass on the left of the vehicle in front of them. When the stopped vehicles begin to move, the motorcyclist must stop passing and merge back in line with traffic.
While lane-filtering is now permitted by law, with the guidelines previously mentioned, it must be done legally and safely to have its intended effect on the safety of riders in stopped traffic.
Under the newly minted law, it is illegal to overtake or pass on the right shoulder, to the right of the vehicle in the farthest right-hand lane if the highway is not limited access or in a lane of traffic moving in the opposite direction.
The law will undergo a three-year period of safety data collection by the Colorado Department of Transportation. The CDOT will compare the number of motorcycle rear-end collisions, the severity of motorcycle rear-end collisions and the number of motorcycle side-swipe collisions while overtaking or passing at 15 miles per hour from before and after the effective date of the law.
For more information regarding Colorado’s new lane-filtering law, visit www.codot.gov/safety/motorcycle/lanefiltering.
