Oregon Bans Lane Splitting and Filtering Under ORS 814.240

The prohibition is written into ORS 814.240 in two separate limbs, and Oregon riders regularly get caught by the second one. Subsection (1)(a) covers same-lane overtaking: a motorcycle or moped operator may not overtake and pass in the same lane occupied by the vehicle being overtaken, unless that vehicle is another motorcycle or moped. Subsection (1)(b) covers the manoeuvre most people mean by lane splitting or filtering: operating a moped or motorcycle "between lanes of traffic or between adjacent lines or rows of vehicles." Because (1)(b) is written around lines and rows rather than around speed, it reaches filtering forward through stopped traffic at a red light just as squarely as it reaches splitting between moving lanes on Interstate 5.

There is no speed threshold, no traffic-condition trigger and no daylight or lane-count qualifier in the Oregon text. The single carve-out is subsection (2), which disapplies the section to a police officer in the performance of official duties. That means an Oregon rider who watches a motorcycle officer filter past a queue is not seeing a rule that applies to civilians.

Riding two abreast is a different question and Oregon allows it, up to two. ORS 814.250 creates the offence of operating a moped or motorcycle more than two abreast, which a rider commits by riding abreast of more than one other motorcycle or moped in the same lane on a roadway laned for traffic. Two riders may therefore share a lane side by side, and ORS 814.240(1)(a) confirms that a motorcycle may overtake another motorcycle or moped within the same lane. Since 2017 an autocycle is excluded from the definition of motorcycle for the ORS 814.250 count, so a three-wheeled autocycle is not counted as a machine in the abreast tally. The ORS 814.250 offence is also a Class B traffic violation.

Using the shoulder as a workaround does not help either. ORS 811.415(1)(b) makes it the offence of unsafe passing on the right to overtake and pass on the right of another vehicle by driving off the paved portion of the highway. The section then lists the circumstances in which right-side passing is permitted, including where the paved roadway is wide enough for two or more lawful lanes in the same direction, and it grants a specific right-side allowance to a bicycle that may safely make the passage under existing conditions. Motorcycles get no equivalent allowance. Unsafe passing on the right is likewise a Class B traffic violation.

Oregon is one of the states where the answer has been repeatedly close. The Legislative Assembly did pass Senate Bill 574 in the 2021 regular session, a measure relating to vehicle filtering in traffic slowdowns, and the Governor vetoed it; the Legislature's own measure record shows the final location as Senate Desk, vetoed, with no chapter number assigned. Filtering measures were introduced again in later sessions. None of that changed the statute: the History line printed after ORS 814.240 in the 2025 edition of the Oregon Revised Statutes still reads 1983 c.338 section 689 and nothing else, and ORS 814.240 does not appear in the table of ORS sections amended, repealed or added to during the 2026 regular session. A bill that passes and is vetoed is not law, so the 1983 text is what an Oregon officer enforces today. Anyone reading about a filtering bill should check whether it was actually enacted and codified before relying on it.

240 is a Class B traffic violation. 188 added to the presumptive amount. 240(1) is framed as an offence a motorcycle operator or moped operator commits. A rider who pays the presumptive fine listed on the citation forfeits it as a judgment; contesting it puts the matter before the court, which under ORS 153 may not impose more than the presumptive amount shown on the citation in some default postures. 415 is a Class B violation. 018(1) provides that the penalty for a violation is a fine and that the law creating a violation may not impose a term of imprisonment.