North Dakota Lane Splitting Ban: N.D.C.C. 39-10.2-03 Bars Riding Between Lanes, Allows Two Abreast

North Dakota puts the whole question in a single section, N.D.C.C. 39-10.2-03, headed "Operating motorcycles on roadways laned for traffic", and it stacks four different rules that riders often read separately.

Subsection 1 is the entitlement: all motorcycles are entitled to full use of a lane, and no motor vehicle may be driven in such a manner as to deprive a motorcycle of the full use of a lane. That sentence protects a rider from being crowded by a driver who treats a motorcycle as half a vehicle. It then trades itself away in its own second sentence, which says the entitlement does not apply to the operation of motorcycles two abreast in a single lane as authorized in subsection 4. Two riders who pair up in one lane give up the statutory claim to the whole lane for that lane.

Subsection 2 bars a motorcycle operator from overtaking and passing in the same lane occupied by the vehicle being overtaken. That is the rule that stops a rider from slipping past a car inside the car's own lane, and it applies whether the traffic is moving or crawling.

Subsection 3 is the filtering ban proper: no person may operate a motorcycle between lanes of traffic or between adjacent lines or rows of vehicles. North Dakota attached nothing to that sentence. There is no exception for stopped or slow traffic, no maximum speed for the rider, no cap on the speed of the traffic being passed, no restriction to two-wheeled machines and no limit to multi-lane roads. Riding the white line at a red light on University Drive in Fargo is prohibited in exactly the same terms as threading moving traffic on Interstate 94. There is also no sunset clause and no pilot programme, so nothing in the section expires or converts into a permission on a future date.

Subsection 4 supplies the affirmative right: motorcycles may not be operated more than two abreast in a single lane, which by structure permits exactly two. Read with subsection 1, that is the trade North Dakota makes. One rider keeps the whole lane. Two riders may share it, and neither can then demand the lane against a passing car.

Subsection 5 exempts police officers in the performance of their official duties, and it exempts them from subsections 2 and 3 only. A trooper may filter between rows of stopped cars and may pass inside an occupied lane. No officer is exempt from the two-abreast cap in subsection 4, because that subsection is not named in the exemption.

Who counts as a motorcycle matters here. Section 39-10.2-01 says that for purposes of chapter 39-10.2 the term "motorcycle" means motorcycles and motorized bicycles, so the filtering ban reaches a moped as well as a full motorcycle. A motorized bicycle is defined at section 39-01-01(49) as a two or three wheeled vehicle with pedals or footrests and a power source of up to two brake horsepower and 3.05 cubic inches of displacement that will not exceed thirty miles per hour unassisted. The definition of motorcycle at section 39-01-01(48) expressly excludes an electric bicycle, so an e-bike rider is outside chapter 39-10.2 and outside this prohibition. Section 39-10.2-01 also grants a motorcycle operator all the rights and imposes all the duties of any other driver in title 39, except the special regulations in the motorcycle chapter itself.

1, so all of the provisions on disposition of traffic offenses apply to a lane-splitting citation. 1-02: the rider may pay the statutory fee to the designated official at or before the scheduled hearing, or post and forfeit bond. 2-03. Bond posted by mail must arrive within fourteen days of the citation date, and a rider who does not request a hearing in that period is deemed to have admitted the violation. 2-03. 1-10(2), rising by seven days for each point above eleven. A rider who appears at the hearing may make a statement in explanation, and the official may waive, reduce or suspend the fee or the bond.

If the manner of riding also amounts to careless driving under section 39-09-01, that is a separate charge carrying six points under item 10 of the same schedule.