SidetrackedSue
Member
A little later the motorcycle and his buddy came blowing by us lane splitting while we were doing 80.
Absolutely necessary, and legal, in SoCal when traffic is just crawling.
In SoCal 80 might be considered 'traffic crawling' but I certainly don't.
As for legality, apparently Oregon motorcyclists have attempted a few times to get lane-splitting at low speed legalized and failed. (most recently according to a quick search was May 2023.)
The car moved a bit to the left and I thought, well that was good (although it might have been in response to a semi in the adjacent lane.) But then a second later as the cycles were receding in the distance, the car suddenly slowed way down and I had to goose it.
You probably don't remember, but if the car interpreted you as passing the semi in the next lane, current V11 (highway) behaviour is to slow down when beside the semi. I've seen that commented on multiple times and experienced it as well, and, as usual, this isn't consistent but common behaviour. So it might have been the semi and not delayed reaction to bikes that caused the slow down.