http://www.motorcyclenews.com/MCN/News/newsresults/Gene...filtering/ Artical in MSN about a guy who'd had his bike confiscated. Now I know that bikers have sucessfully prosicuted and been compensated for being knocked off whilst filtering so it is legal to do so. (at sencable speed and not while braking any other pre standing laws of the road) this guy had not actually broken a law.

yeah i read that too, i dont know if i could let a rozzer take my bike just for filtering, is it illegal, i have filtered in my area past the police and not been pulled etc ??                                                                                                                                                                             

 the officer mustv been a right jobsworth or a rookie recruit,or had a complaint from some upset  ole lady cos his noisy and nasty m/c went by and woke her up!                                                                                                                                                                              

with ya there tm,or she saw the awful tattoo and bald head the biker had when he stopped, why dont the police concentrate on other more importants thing...god buddy i really need to get off my soap box or gonna get all politically incorrect !!!                                                                                                                                                                             

It is legal to filter so long as the traffic is stationary....and you dont put yourself or other road users at risk...my instructor said if I was ever in any doubt about it on Module 2 just NOT to do it...they wouldnt penalise me for not filtering...                                                                                                                                                                              

read the article above rose, it would seem the law can prosecute for filtering even when stationary, its in the mcn this week, a biker had his r1 taken away roadside                                                                                                                                                                              

But Ive been told otherwise will check with my friend a traffic patrol officer....see whats really what!                                                                                                                                                                              

me too, my cousin who is a sargeant for leicestershire police on the bikes, will have a answer tomorrow for all,                                                                                                                                                                             

I knew this would split the jury (you lot) that's why I put it up, and added the comments about knowing it to be leagal as long as you do not actually brake any other law whilest doing it lol.                                                                                                                                                                             

its the stupid, disturbance/annoyance laws they can use , a load of bo**ocks                                                                                                                                                                             

Might be a good idea to get the phone number of the local inspector and the press on your mobile for cases like this.   You couldnt make this up its like something from a 70s comedy sketch. Need a good lawyer to screw the jumped up little **** to the wall                                                                                                                                                                             

The law is an ASS   I suppose I've been "lucky" I've been filtering for 40 odd years without let or hiderance. On occasions I have been instructed by "plod" to filter rather than sit in a jam If you do it with consideration for the poor creatures in their cages its never been a problem for me. More often than not they move over for me And as stated before I dont ride with my lights on all the time, only when the weather takes a gloomy turn during the daylight hours, I find that positioning myself where the drivers eyes are in their mirror (side or inside) is enough to alert them to my presence, if no response then a quick flash of full beam halogen 60 watt is enough to wake em up That and my mobile "force field"                                                                                                                                                                             

Sadly while there is no doubt that filtering is legal in the appropriate circumstances given the references in the highway code, many cops don't really know the law. In the past I have been pulled for riding a bike with no indicators ( a pre 86 bike ), and pulled for riding a bike with no lights fitted ( daytime MOT ).   In both cases the cop told me I would be booked and when told that it was legal I was held at the side of the road until they managed to get through to a traffic officer who told them they couldn't book me for it.    In the case of no indicators I was given a rectifier ticket as even when another cop told him it was legal he just didn't believe that it was legal to ride a "modern" bike without them.                                                                                                                                                                             

Filtering is legal if safe to do so.   Anything that could cause another vehicle to change direction or speed could however, be classed as unsafe.   Filtering along lengths of solid white line is also legal as long as you don't straddle or cross it.  Filtering along lengths of zig-zags at crossings and school keep clear areas is not though.   The Police are within their rights, if they arrest you, to confiscate your vehicle as evidence at the roadside.  However, you are also within your rights to demand a receipt.  If you do this and the copper refuses, which he is unlikely to do so as he will know this could get him into bother and could also make any evidence the vehicle brings up inadmissable, then politely ask him/her to confirm they are refusing to issue a receipt.   However, if you don't demand a receipt, the copper isn't required to issue you with one.   Unfortunately, many coppers do get the law wrong.  This is inevitable really.  "The Law" is a big thing and having a good understanding of it all is something even judges aren't expected to have.  They are able to call on books and examples of case evidence to assist them.  PC Plod on the roadside can't.   This is the reason why I spent a good proportion of my time with Leeds Highways sorting problems caused by the police issuing tickets incorrectly.  But again of course, I had copies of the Highway Act and similar by the side of my desk, so I had a big advantage!   But back to thread, under normal circumstances, filtering is legal.                                                                                                                                                                             

  Of course if ya don't smoke, you don't need filters      (sorry)                                                                                                                                                                             

I ran this past a friendly traffic policeman a while back and got an answer to the effect that while it was legal, you might have difficulty defending a due care and attention charge if there was a collision.
Also he thought that if there was an accident an insurance company might blame the biker automatically, but that's a civil matter outside police jurisdiction.
I'd like to know exactly what happened in these incidents. I'm not suggesting that the biker in question has not told the truth, just wondering what there is he might not have said? I filter through stationary rush hour traffic every day at not much more than walking pace, but if this guy's been charging through at a rate of knots it could be another matter.
Just a theory, that's all.

I have to admit, I never filter on zigzag lines, wheresoever they may be.....after all, it's not gonna delay my progress that much! I also have to be even more cautious when filtering, as I have large panniers on my CBR which makes it fairly wide!

As to what the police do or don't know, when I used to ride my escort trike that we built, (without a helmet) I was never stopped by any police, the average traffic cop in a car had absolutely no idea of the legality or otherwise of the vehicle, the only guys who might have known were the bike cops, and unbelievably I never saw one of those when I was out on it!
                                                                                                                                                                             

This time Austin had been filtering at a pedestrian crossing. That would be an offence if he had overtaken the vehicle nearest the crossing but he insists: �I stopped alongside a bus at the front of the queue but I never ended up ahead of it. I was level with the cab.
Surely it would be an offence if he was filtering past when it's on the zig zag lines preceding the pedestrian crossing. "Stopping alongside a bus at the front of the queue" indicates to me that there were more vehicles queuing than just the bus, so he must've overtaken at least one vehicle on the zig zags...
The way I've always understood it, you're not supposed to overtake on the approach to a pedestrian crossing... I'm pretty sure it doesn't say anywhere in the highway code: "It's OK to overtake some stuff on the approach to a pedestrian crossing, just so long as you draw up alongside the first vehicle in the queue".Maybe it's just me, but I think it's kind of a misleading one-sided article and that the rider in question wasn't as squeaky clean as he'd like us to believe                                                                                                                                                                              

my instructor said if I was ever in any doubt about it on Module 2 just NOT to do it...they wouldnt penalise me for not filtering...

Yet another case of different instructors telling you different things and each one believing they're the authority on it! I've had instructors tell me that you DO get penalised for not progressing through traffic!
                                                                                                                                                                             

I did the police course and you CAN legally filter in a zig zagged marked area, so long as you don't pass the vehicle that's at the front of the line, where the actual crossing is (the grey area is the speed of that filtering and you can always get tagged on that, as "reasonable" is a subjective amount). This was a comment made on a judged element of riding by a police riding instructor, where I hadn't gone to the allowable position, preferring to stay back in the queue a little.

But, unless making a few extra yards is likely to save you more time than you'd lose by having this discussion at the side of the road with a policeman who isn't aware of every aspect of the law, then perhaps it's not worth the possible hassle.