Filtering

At what point/speed do you filter ? Mainly "A" road & Motorway Users

  • At any speed up to legal speed limit.

    Votes: 71 15.4%
  • If traffic is traveling at 0 - 30 mph

    Votes: 275 59.7%
  • If traffic is traveling at 30 - 50 mph

    Votes: 41 8.9%
  • Never filter - unless traffic at standstill

    Votes: 74 16.1%

  • Total voters
    461
a) Lane switching cyclists who think no-one else filters but them.
b) Scooterists - as above
c) Lobotomised pedestrians who think nothing is coming from the right when they cross stationary traffic to the centre of the road.
d) Tourists doing U turns when sat-nav tells them there is a "quicker" way

I add:
e) stopped traffic (especially trucks & buses) letting somebody turn left/ right without checking their mirrors for oncoming bikes.
f) people pulling out (see e above) without checking for oncoming bikes. (Mate of mine has just trashed his MV Agusta & his thumb in a 5mph spill in exactly these circumstances)
g) pedestrian foreign tourists who look the wrong way
h) anything with "addison lee" written on it
i) any BMW over 5 years old never indicates (I know exactly where I'm going so no need to indicate syndrome)
j) Horse manure from mounted police
k) gravel dropped by lorries that always ends up in the middle of the road
l) London yoof walking straight out because they are so 'ard that a big feckoof bike won't hurt
m) people throwing lit fag ends out of windows / gobbing out of windows / pissing out of windows / opening beer cans out of windows
n) people handing out free copies of the sun in the middle of the road
o) people trying to play chicken with you filtering in the opposite direction, ie towards you when there isn't enough room for both of you.
p) Big issue sellers
q) School run mum trying to finish Tarquin's art homework and pack Fontelroy's packed lunch and do her makeup and organise lunch on the phone at the FerkinYummyMummy
r) Dogs jumping out of open car windows (seriously, it happens)
s) People running from the Fuzz
t) The Fuzz chasing after people
u) Squeegie bottle immigrants at traffic lights
v) Bike-jackers jumping on the back seat and telling you to get off of get stabbed (ok not so much in London)
w) dick'eds changing lanes using the "manoevre, signal, mirror" technique

x) East european flower sellers standing in the middle of the road.
y) Builders lorries, stuff being chucked on that bounces off into the road, or ropes being thrown over lorries loads and lassoing a passing rider ( i've seen it happen in drury lane to a K100 rider)
 
You might find it's "mirrors" that are the widest part of a car..and they coincide with handlebar height...:D
:blast

Yes, but the handlebars can turn around them easy enough, ie lean the bike one way, turn the bars the other, edge one bar past the mirror, move forward a bit and hey presto! Through the gap!!! Boxes are not that agile..... :augie
 
As someone said earlier, there may be geographical differences, i.e. up in Jockland, not so much traffic except in the cities. Most (but certainly not all) drivers I've encountered when filtering move to let you through if they see you coming. And that is maybe the issue, if you are filtering slowly making steady progress you are not viewed as a numpty flying down the middle of the road when all else is not moving.
I've been in the stationary situation in the car and always look out for bikes approaching and seen a few flying through, does not create a good impression imo.
 
I have and do Filter at all different speeds, there is no set in stone things and it no plan, I'm aware there are others that filter past faster than I do when I do so I let them go, but made a decision way back that I would not judge or critisize another rider, thats his or her ride and nothing to do with mine. I hope :eek:


Ride safe :thumb
 
i filter regularly, how fast? depends on traffic flow, width of road, mood i'm in, bike i'm on (got a 1200 GSA and also got a 1976 suzuki GT750, it dont like slow!)



I also dont get annoyed at the people in cars who close the gap, as I know that I will be past them fairly soon. simples:JB
 
McFiltering

Is it illegal of just bad form to filter at the drive through?
 
Is it illegal of just bad form to filter at the drive through?
It's just shows very bad judgement.
... eating at McDonalds i mean. :barf

Whereas dogging in a multi storey car park is just wrong - on so many levels.

:green gri
 
I rode back from Whitby yesterday, hit the York ring road and got stuck in an RTA, nasty looking one, car turning right Honda cross trail slap in the middle of it. Ambulance on scene lad in a neck brace so still alive thank fuck. He filtered up the middle can't have been fast as the ring road at rush hour means traffic crawling. Police stopping traffic so me and 3 other biked (not together) pull up about 4 cars back from the incident. Superman on his 650 bandit passes us at about 50, hits the van stopped closest the RTA on the back corner and slides right up to the plod car, Looked in a lot of pain. Bike hit the car coming the other way.

Reason for the ramble, it's not the speed it's the space between the ears that makes the difference, and in Mr bandits case I can't see him surviving another season.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
 
I like filtering up the traffic in LANE ONE - you know, there is a motorway full of traffic, all in lanes 2 and 3 with a mile of empty tarmac in lane 1...just cruise by at nice gentle speed faster than them, to make a point. I don't know why it is, lane 1 must smell or something.

With traffic moving in all three lanes, then filter between 2 and 3 so as to keep a decent average going.
 
There's no 'I filter at a speed that suits the conditions'

Anybody who has predetermine how they will ride is a Pratt!

Not quite sure I agree entirely - it is good to have a plan. The thing with plans is, they can change according to circumstances. 'Circumstances' can be interchanged with 'conditions' as needed.
 
Not quite sure I agree entirely - it is good to have a plan. The thing with plans is, they can change according to circumstances. 'Circumstances' can be interchanged with 'conditions' as needed.

+1. Planning (or preparation) matters - knowing how to adjust your planning to the specific circumstances is survival.
 
Filtering up to 70 mph on the periferique in Paris, head light on full beam and hazards on, never an issue !!

In England never over 30 mph ....
 
Not quite sure I agree entirely - it is good to have a plan. The thing with plans is, they can change according to circumstances. 'Circumstances' can be interchanged with 'conditions' as needed.

I do have a plan, it's to ride to the conditions and my capability

I don't start out with a plan to only filter should the traffic I need to pass is traverllling between certain speed ranges - that IMO is a at best a waste of thinking time and at worse means you will make judgments based on a decision that was not made based solely on the facts in front of you.

When I filter there are cars doing 15 mph I would not pass and others doing over the legal limit that I would - that later normal because we have a connected understanding involving my positioning indicating my intent and they makeing a decisive movement to show they understand and want to help my intent.
 
One of the things I think about when filtering on the motorway (Which I'm guessing is very much Wrefords world to work) is the gap and not the car. So, almost like playing with a photo in some editing suite, with the 'negative' option where you flip the blacks and whites of the photo, Sometimes I flip in my brain the 'hazard' and look at gaps as hazards and not the cars them selves as hazards.
A car alongside a car, is actually relatively safe. They're not going anywhere. If you saw a biker slicing between two cars where if he'd have waited just a few seconds, they wouldn't have been opposite one another, it would be easy to think 'What a plumb - why do it when they're side by side'. When I see a car with no car opposite him, that to me is the danger - the car, in a jiffy could swap lanes and fill that gap.
So I often apply the negative filter to my vision, and sometimes wait for two cars to be alongside one another before I make my move. Sounds a bit upside down, but in the right circumstances it's much safer than gambling with the gaps.

In the very slow and heavy traffic when it's M25, five pm and it's just two solid lanes, I very much identify breaks in the lines of cars. Again, that's where it's going to go wrong and again, my negative filter looks for those and not cars.

As a very rough bench mark, when I'm at work and am being corporate (i.e. the world is watching and judging the bloke on the marked bike!) then I cap my filtering when the moving traffic gets to 50mph. I'm not saying I wouldn't filter at traffic flow speeds higher than that on my own or an unmarked bike, but for corporate image ... 50mph then I call it a day. :thumb2
 
One of the things I think about when filtering on the motorway (Which I'm guessing is very much Wrefords world to work) is the gap and not the car. So, almost like playing with a photo in some editing suite, with the 'negative' option where you flip the blacks and whites of the photo, Sometimes I flip in my brain the 'hazard' and look at gaps as hazards and not the cars them selves as hazards.
A car alongside a car, is actually relatively safe. They're not going anywhere. If you saw a biker slicing between two cars where if he'd have waited just a few seconds, they wouldn't have been opposite one another, it would be easy to think 'What a plumb - why do it when they're side by side'. When I see a car with no car opposite him, that to me is the danger - the car, in a jiffy could swap lanes and fill that gap.
So I often apply the negative filter to my vision, and sometimes wait for two cars to be alongside one another before I make my move. Sounds a bit upside down, but in the right circumstances it's much safer than gambling with the gaps.

In the very slow and heavy traffic when it's M25, five pm and it's just two solid lanes, I very much identify breaks in the lines of cars. Again, that's where it's going to go wrong and again, my negative filter looks for those and not cars.

As a very rough bench mark, when I'm at work and am being corporate (i.e. the world is watching and judging the bloke on the marked bike!) then I cap my filtering when the moving traffic gets to 50mph. I'm not saying I wouldn't filter at traffic flow speeds higher than that on my own or an unmarked bike, but for corporate image ... 50mph then I call it a day. :thumb2

Cheers for that. Makes complete sense.
 
One of the things I think about when filtering on the motorway (Which I'm guessing is very much Wrefords world to work) is the gap and not the car. So, almost like playing with a photo in some editing suite, with the 'negative' option where you flip the blacks and whites of the photo, Sometimes I flip in my brain the 'hazard' and look at gaps as hazards and not the cars them selves as hazards.
A car alongside a car, is actually relatively safe. They're not going anywhere. If you saw a biker slicing between two cars where if he'd have waited just a few seconds, they wouldn't have been opposite one another, it would be easy to think 'What a plumb - why do it when they're side by side'. When I see a car with no car opposite him, that to me is the danger - the car, in a jiffy could swap lanes and fill that gap.
So I often apply the negative filter to my vision, and sometimes wait for two cars to be alongside one another before I make my move. Sounds a bit upside down, but in the right circumstances it's much safer than gambling with the gaps.

In the very slow and heavy traffic when it's M25, five pm and it's just two solid lanes, I very much identify breaks in the lines of cars. Again, that's where it's going to go wrong and again, my negative filter looks for those and not cars.

As a very rough bench mark, when I'm at work and am being corporate (i.e. the world is watching and judging the bloke on the marked bike!) then I cap my filtering when the moving traffic gets to 50mph. I'm not saying I wouldn't filter at traffic flow speeds higher than that on my own or an unmarked bike, but for corporate image ... 50mph then I call it a day. :thumb2

With that kind of logic and application, it's easy to see how you've made 50. Squeezing between HGV's is always a little fraught , so i always tend to filter between 2 and 3 , simply because , there is no chance of trucks lane changing to the 3rd lane.
 
I live within the M25 filtering is a daily fact provided you are within the posted speed limit and not causing other drivers to take avoiding action you are legal but you are still only getting 50/50 on an insurance claim.
I filter no more than 10-15 MPH faster than the traffic once it gets to around 45 MPH i just move with the traffic.
 


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