Nebraska Bans Lane Splitting but Allows Two Abreast in a Lane

Section 60-6,308 stacks four different rules into one short section, and reading only the first line gets the answer wrong. Subsection (1) grants the entitlement: a motorcycle is entitled to full use of a traffic lane of any highway and no vehicle may be driven so as to deprive a motorcycle of the full use of that lane. That entitlement then trades against a rider's own choice, because the same sentence closes "except that motorcycles may be operated two abreast in a single lane." Two Nebraska riders who pair up in one lane keep the right to be in that lane but give up the statutory claim to have all of it to themselves. Subsection (4) caps the pairing at two: motorcycles shall not be operated more than two abreast in a single lane.

The prohibitions come next and they are unconditional. Subsection (2) bars a motorcycle operator from overtaking and passing in the same lane occupied by the vehicle being overtaken, which is the manoeuvre of squeezing past a car inside its own lane. Subsection (3) is broader: no person shall operate a motorcycle between lanes of traffic or between adjacent lines or rows of vehicles. Nebraska attached no qualifier to that sentence. There is no allowance for traffic that is stopped, no maximum speed differential, no restriction to roads of a stated speed limit and no daylight condition, all of which appear in the filtering statutes other states have written. That makes riding up the centre line at a red light in Lincoln as much an offense as threading moving traffic on Interstate 80 through Omaha. The phrase "between adjacent lines or rows of vehicles" also reaches parking-lot aisles and queues that are not marked lanes at all.

The only exemption is for police. Subsection (5) disapplies subsections (2) and (3) to peace officers in the performance of their official duties, so a Nebraska State Patrol or municipal motor officer may filter and may pass inside an occupied lane while working. The exemption does not extend to subsections (1), (4) or (6), and it does not reach civilian escorts, emergency medical riders or funeral escorts.

Two definitional points decide who the section binds. Subsection (7) provides that for purposes of this section motorcycle does not include an autocycle, a carve-out added by LB909 in 2018, so a three-wheeled autocycle with a steering wheel is treated as an ordinary vehicle here and gains neither the full-lane entitlement nor the two-abreast allowance. And § 60-6,306 places motorcyclists under all of the rights and duties of any other driver under the Nebraska Rules of the Road, except for the special motorcycle regulations and provisions that by their nature cannot apply, which is what supplies the lane-discipline and following-distance rules that sit behind § 60-6,308.

Subsection (6) rounds out the section by forbidding a rider to attach himself, herself, or the motorcycle to any other vehicle on a roadway. Riders should also read § 60-6,307 alongside it, since that section carries the equipment-side restrictions: riding only on a permanent and regular seat, sitting astride and facing forward, keeping both hands available on the handlebars, footrests for a passenger who is not in a sidecar or enclosed cab, and a fifteen-inch ceiling on handlebar height above the mounting point.

No Nebraska city or county can legalise filtering locally. Section 60-6,108(3) makes the Rules of the Road uniform throughout the state and in all political subdivisions, and bars a local authority from enacting or enforcing any ordinance directly contrary to them unless the Legislature expressly authorizes it. Nebraska has not enacted the kind of filtering pilot several other states adopted, and § 60-6,308 has not been amended on this point since LB909 in 2018.

Because § 60-6,308 declares no penalty of its own, § 60-682 makes a violation of it a traffic infraction rather than a misdemeanor. Section 60-689 fixes the fine for a traffic infraction with no specific penalty at not more than one hundred dollars for a first offense, not more than two hundred dollars for a second offense within a one-year period, and not more than three hundred dollars for a third or subsequent offense within one year. One point attaches to the driving record under the catch-all in § 60-4,182(17), which covers all other reportable traffic violations and whose exclusion list (occupant protection, parking, license not in possession, mufflers, oversize loads, helmets, overloaded trucks) does not include lane violations.

Peace officers are directed by § 60-683 to enforce the Rules of the Road and may arrest on view without a warrant for a violation committed in their presence. In a civil claim after a collision, a rider's breach of subsection (2) or (3) is evidence of negligence, while a driver who crowded a solo rider out of a lane is the one on the wrong side of the subsection (1) entitlement.