Wyoming Bans Lane Splitting Outright but Grants Riders the Full Lane and Two Abreast

Wyoming stacks four separate rules into one section, and reading only the first of them produces the wrong answer. W.S. 31-5-115(e) opens with an entitlement: all motorcycles are entitled to full use of a lane, and no motor vehicle may be driven so as to deprive a motorcycle of the full use of a lane. That sentence protects a rider from being crowded by a car sharing the lane. It is immediately qualified, because the same subsection allows two motorcycles to be driven abreast in the same lane by consent of both motorcycle drivers, and allows only one autocycle per lane.

W.S. 31-5-115(f) then bars a motorcycle operator from overtaking and passing any vehicle in the same lane occupied by the vehicle being overtaken, except another motorcycle. Wyoming attaches a condition to that exception that most states do not have anywhere in their vehicle code: the operator of a motorcycle overtaking another motorcycle in the same lane shall first match the speed of the motorcycle being overtaken. A rider may therefore move past a riding partner inside the lane, but only after equalising speed, not by accelerating through.

W.S. 31-5-115(g) is the lane-splitting prohibition itself. It is written in absolute terms and reaches two distinct manoeuvres: operating between lanes of traffic, and operating between adjacent lines or rows of vehicles. The second limb catches filtering up to a signal between stopped cars and also riding up an aisle between parked or queued rows, neither of which is strictly between marked lanes. Nothing in the subsection is conditioned on a speed differential, a maximum road speed, a stopped-traffic requirement or a two-wheel restriction, which is what separates Wyoming from the filtering states that permit the manoeuvre under stated limits.

W.S. 31-5-115(h) supplies the only exemption: subsections (f) and (g) do not apply to police officers in the performance of their official duties. A Wyoming Highway Patrol or municipal police motorcycle may therefore split lanes and pass inside a lane on duty. There is no exemption for emergency medical riders, for escorts or for participants in a funeral procession.

W.S. 31-5-115(j) closes the group by capping side-by-side riding: motorcycles shall not be operated three or more abreast in a single lane. Read together with (e), Wyoming's answer on lane sharing is precise. Two riders may pair up in one lane if both agree; a third may not join them; a car may not squeeze in; and no rider may thread between the lanes at all.

Two further provisions in the same section shape how the group is policed. W.S. 31-5-115(p) requires any person operating a motorcycle to have the headlamps activated at all times including daylight hours, which is why a rider filtering in traffic is easy to identify. W.S. 31-5-115(q) exempts operators in an officially authorized parade from subsections (e) through (o), so a sanctioned parade formation is outside both the lane entitlement and the splitting ban. Wyoming's helmet rule, in W.S. 31-5-115(o), reaches only minors, and does not apply to a person riding within an enclosed cab or operating a moped.

S. S. 31-5-1201. That section makes it a misdemeanor to violate any provision of the Wyoming traffic act or the rules authorized under it, and where no other penalty is provided it sets a fine of not more than $200 for a first conviction, not more than $300 for a second conviction of the same offense within one year, and not more than $500, or imprisonment for not more than six months, or both, for a third or subsequent conviction of the same offense within one year of the first.

S. 31-5-1201(c) evidence of prior convictions is kept out of the trial itself and introduced only afterwards to fix the penalty. Enforcement is by the Wyoming Highway Patrol on state highways and by municipal and county officers elsewhere, and a citation is answered in the circuit court for the county where it issued. Because splitting is a moving violation rather than an equipment defect, it is reportable to the driver record kept under Title 31 chapter 7 and is routinely treated by insurers as an at-fault-risk conviction.