Louisiana Bans Lane Splitting Outright but Protects Two Riders Sharing a Lane

The trade in subsection (A) is the part most riders miss. The first sentence is protective: "All motorcycles are entitled to full use of a lane and no motor vehicle shall be driven in such manner as to deprive any motorcycle of the full use of a lane." The second sentence withdraws it: "This Subsection shall not apply to motorcycles operated two abreast in a single lane." So Louisiana law lets two riders share a lane, and the moment they do, the statutory entitlement that keeps a car from crowding them out of that lane stops applying to them. Subsection (D) caps the arrangement at two, forbidding operation more than two abreast in a single lane.

The two prohibitions are worded differently and reach different manoeuvres. Subsection (B) is about passing: "The operator of a motorcycle shall not overtake and pass in the same lane occupied by the vehicle being overtaken." Subsection (C) is about position: "No person shall operate a motorcycle between lanes of traffic or between adjacent lines or rows of vehicles." Nothing in (C) is conditioned on the surrounding traffic moving, on a speed differential, or on a maximum road speed, which is the machinery states with filtering allowances use. It also reaches "lines or rows of vehicles" and not only marked lanes, so a rider threading a queue in a parking area laid out in rows is inside the words of the prohibition just as a rider on an interstate shoulder line would be.

Subsection (E) creates the one exemption Louisiana grants, and it is personal rather than situational: "Subsections (B) and (C) shall not apply to police officers in the performance of their official duties." A police motorcycle escort may split; a civilian may not, and no emergency or congestion justification appears in the text.

Subsection (F), the newest part of the section, spells out that the general Title 32 penalty machinery reaches this conduct: penalties imposed by the chapter apply to any driver or operator of a vehicle, as defined in R.S. 32:1, found guilty of or pleading guilty or nolo contendere to a violation of the chapter, including this section, or of any regulation of the department, secretary and commissioner made under it. The section's history line reads: Added by Acts 1970, No. 538, Section 5; Acts 1999, No. 631, Section 1; Acts 2022, No. 739, Section 1.

Who counts as a motorcycle rider here is set by R.S. 32:1(51), which defines a motorcycle as every motor vehicle having a seat or saddle for the use of the rider and designed to travel on not more than three wheels in contact with the ground, excluding a tractor, a motorized bicycle and an electric-assisted bicycle. Three-wheelers are therefore covered, and so is an autocycle, which R.S. 32:1(2)(a) defines as a three-wheeled motorcycle with partially or completely enclosed or side-by-side seating, a rollbar or roll cage, safety belts for all occupants, and control by a steering mechanism and pedals. A rider on a motorized bicycle or an electric-assisted bicycle falls outside R.S. 32:191.1 entirely and is governed by the general lane rule in R.S. 32:79(1), which requires a vehicle to be driven as nearly as practicable entirely within a single lane and not moved from that lane until the driver has first ascertained the movement can be made with safety.

S. 1 sets no fine of its own, so subsection (F) routes a violation to the chapter penalty in La. S. 32:57(A)(1): not more than one hundred seventy-five dollars or thirty days for a first violation, and not more than five hundred dollars or ninety days for a subsequent one, or both in each case. S. S. 32:57(I) raises the exposure to a fine of not less than seven hundred fifty dollars and not more than one thousand dollars, or up to thirty days, or both.

S. S. S. 32:57(E) cover impaired driving, speeding fifteen or more over, school zones, suspended licences, drag racing and no-insurance citations only. S. 1(A) protects.