If his poor decision hadn't enabled the biker to act on his poor decision, the biker wouldn't have smashed into the car piloted by the person who made poor decision #3.
So, yes, he started it...but he didn't cause it all by himself.
Hard to say who really started it without the rear view. My guess is that the biker had been gaining fast on the car and once behind began to push through, splitting lanes, and the driver was uncomfortable with how close he was and moved over. Just speculating.
In the end, the law and insurance will place the blame on the last driver.
I wonder whether it's typical in CA to move over to give room to lane splitting bikers. Pretty sure it's not on the list of guidelines published when they made splitting legal.
No, it isn't typical. In this case, it doesn't look like usual lane splitting (between two lanes of slow moving traffic), more like using lane splitting as an excuse to pass on the right.
You're always going to be passing on the right of one lane if you're splitting - left of one, right of another - otherwise you're passing on the shoulder. Or is that considered splitting as well? Serious question, I have no idea, just assumed using the shoulder is always illegal except in an emergency so not an option for splitting.
You hit it on the head anyway with "between two lanes of slow moving traffic". Traffic in the HOV lane was moving quickly outright plus considerably faster than the lane to the right; not legal splitting given the circumstances...assuming I understand the rules.
In stop and go traffic I usually move over if I see them approaching as they are coming through regardless, even when space is a little tight. I don't need any damage to my car, or more importantly, being blamed for hitting the biker if they misjudge the gap.
An interesting thing I noticed is when you move to the left the rider will acknowledge this about 80% of the time with a friendly hand gesture, but if you're in the right lane and move to the right to give more room, an acknowledgement is almost never given.
The driver in the car pulled out on both the motorcycle and the driver of the car with the camera. The dud pulling into the left lane was a brain dead jerk!!! He is lucky the guy with the dash cam didn't hit him too. The guy on the bike should know cars are full of brain dead cell phone users out to get you and ride accordingly. But it was still the guy pulling into the left lane fault.
I blame the biker for the exact same reason. Maybe the guy who pulled out wasn't from CA and didn't know to expect bikes to come blasting between lanes at 40mph faster that the rest of the traffic.
Lane splitting bikers, albeit legal out here, is merciless for me. Well, not entirely I guess... that was kind'a harsh.
I'd rather they don't sideswipe me, so I guess I give a bit more room than some when I can. But, if by chance they manage to somehow flop it, it's all on them.
Yeah, I see it all the time in Cali. However, you can only go 15MPH over the speed of the cars in the lanes you are splitting. This biker appeared to be going faster than that. At a slower speed, I think he could have avoided the collision.
I'm glad he was wearing protective clothing and a helmet. Here in Texas, it is not unusual to see bikers in shorts and t-shirts, and no helmet -- 100-percent legal here.
