Oklahoma Bans Lane Splitting for Motorcycles, Scooters and E-Bikes

Oklahoma settled this question by express text rather than leaving it to general lane discipline. Subsection D of Section 11-1103 is a flat prohibition on passing other vehicles between lanes of traffic traveling in the same direction, and it names five vehicle types: motorcycle, motor-driven cycle, motorized scooter, motorized bicycle and electric-assisted bicycle. The electric-assisted bicycle was folded in by Laws 2019, c. 43, Section 3, effective November 1, 2019, the act that built Oklahoma's three-class e-bike framework, so a Class 3 pedal-assist rider on an Oklahoma City arterial is under the same rule as a motorcyclist.

What the section does not contain matters as much as what it does. There is no paragraph authorising filtering between stopped or slow vehicles, which is how Arizona, Colorado, Minnesota and Utah each softened their own prohibitions. There is no speed cap of the kind those states pair with a filtering allowance, because there is nothing to cap. There is also no express two-abreast right for motorcyclists in Oklahoma and no statement that a motorcycle is entitled to the full use of a lane. Riders in Wisconsin, Indiana, Maryland and South Carolina can point to such a clause; an Oklahoma rider cannot. The only two-abreast language in the Oklahoma rules of the road is in Section 11-1205(D), and it is about bicycles and motorized scooters, which may not ride more than two abreast except on paths set aside for their exclusive use, may not impede the normal and reasonable flow of traffic, and on a laned roadway must ride within a single lane.

The one exception written into subsection D is narrow and easy to misread. The sentence "This subsection shall not apply to the operator of an authorized emergency vehicle" exempts police motorcycles and other authorized emergency vehicles as defined in 47 O.S. Section 1-103, not a civilian rider who believes filtering is safer in stopped traffic. Section 11-1103 also carries three unrelated rules in the same section that riders often meet at the same stop: subsection A bars anyone under sixteen from carrying a passenger on a motorcycle, motor-driven cycle, motorized scooter or motorized bicycle; subsection B allows a rider sixteen or older to carry a passenger only if the machine has a wheel diameter of twelve inches or more and is factory-designed with a double seating device and double footrests or a sidecar; and subsection C bans holding onto a moving vehicle to be propelled.

Because the prohibition is express, the general lane-discipline sections are a backstop rather than the main charge. 47 O.S. Section 11-309(1) requires a vehicle to be driven as nearly as practicable entirely within a single lane, and Section 11-309(2) requires a driver to ascertain that a lane change can be made safely and to signal for at least the last one hundred feet traveled. Passing on the right is separately limited by Section 11-304, which permits it only where the vehicle overtaken is turning left, on a road with unobstructed pavement wide enough for two or more lines of moving vehicles in each direction, or on a one-way roadway of that width, and in no event by driving off the pavement or main traveled portion of the roadway. A rider who splits and then drops onto the shoulder can therefore collect Section 11-1103(D), Section 11-309(1) and Section 11-304(b) from one manoeuvre.

S. Section 17-101. A violation is a misdemeanor under Section 17-101(A), and Section 17-101(B)(1) sets the punishment for Sections 10-101 through 14-121 where no other penalty is provided: a fine of not less than five dollars and not more than five hundred dollars, or imprisonment for not more than ten days. A second conviction within one year of the first exposes the rider to as much as twenty days, and a third or later conviction within that year to as much as six months, or to both fine and imprisonment.

Section 17-101(D) permits an additional term of up to one day at the court's discretion on any Title 47 offense not otherwise punishable by confinement. Section 11-309 carries its own cross-reference confirming that a lane-discipline conviction is punished the same way. Where a district attorney is willing and no jail term is mandatory, Section 17-101(B)(2) allows the rider to enter a written plea of guilty and remit fine and costs rather than appear. Enforcement is by any peace officer at the roadside, and in a civil suit after a collision the statutory violation is the point a defence lawyer will start from.