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
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.

Totally agree. There are TWO speeds that matter when you are filtering - ACTUAL speed and RELATIVE speed.
 
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.

Not arguing with your logic, I agree on the theoy, BUT stay alert because I had an artic in lane 3 just last week - pulled out into lane 3 very suddenly and with no indication. Stayed there for at least 30 seconds as he pulled past the other truck in lane 2...he SHOULDN'T HAVE been in lane 3, but it is no good spouting that from a hospital bed with both legs dangling from the ceiling.....
 
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 ... 50 mph then I call it a day. :thumb2

as an ex-courier this is spot on , apart from the cap at 50 mph , my cap is 70 mph. i may not be a trained driver , but i do 15-20k miles a year mainly in London. in the 8 years i was a courier , i was clocking 55-60k miles/yr at work and 15-18k/yr miles after work. And you can split the traffic with panniers on on a bmw, it makes little or no difference to your speed. the time it gets hard is when the traffic comes to a halt .

Motorbikes are the oil in the traffic engine , when the bikes stop , the traffic is fucked .
 
Conventional wisdom says don't filter if moving line of traffic is doing more than 30 mph, and never filter at more than 15 mph faster than said moving traffic. Anything else AFAIC is overtaking, not filtering. Now im awaiting the incoming from the riding gods who inhabit this part of the cyberspace.:rolleyes:
 
Conventional wisdom says don't filter if moving line of traffic is doing more than 30 mph, and never filter at more than 15 mph faster than said moving traffic. Anything else AFAIC is overtaking, not filtering. Now im awaiting the incoming from the riding gods who inhabit this part of the cyberspace.:rolleyes:

I think that if the traffic is doing 15mph, I'd not be doing 30 I don't think. 20-22 would be my limit (although I've never looked at my speedo while filtering )

A
 
You can never ever put a speed on filtering speeds, it's all subjective, and no circumstances will ever be the same! So I won't vote above :p

There are too many variations on skills, actual skills and perceived skills, to be able to put it down in black and white ...

When filtering you need the skills of an old western gunfighter like Wyatt Earp, a Spitfire pilot in the Battle of Britain ... eyes that see everything, miss nothing. Speed is subjective, irrelevant ...

I filter fast in moving traffic, but I've clocked every, that's e v e r y driver, his face, his eyes, in the mirror, his body language, the position of his front wheels ... and from being level with his back wheel I'm level with his shoulders before he can hurt me!

In stationary traffic I have more time, take it easier, can work tighter ... but I've clocked every car still!

As my old boss once said on a Royal Escort ... "Bloody 'ell Micky that was close"

To which I replied ... "Should've been sat where I was boss"

Shut your good eye and go for it :D

:beerjug:
 
In addition to the above .... agree with ol' Giles, its the gaps that ring the warning bells, gaps in either lane ahead where a car could dive in to. Not just from your nearside or offside, but from a third lane when you yourself was heading for that gap and he gets there first :blast

BUT also gaps in between vehicles in the same lane (any lane) whereby it gives them room to manoeuvre :rob

Open up the gaps, open up the possibilities ... either way, for them, or for me :mcgun

:beerjug:
 
I was told by my RoSPA instructor to apply the 20/20 rule.

Only filter at 20mph more than the traffic is moving, and only up to your own speed of 40mph.

Even then it's down to personal judgement , 6th sense, etc.
i would like to see where it says that in the road craft manual
 
First thing i thought,

speed and forward planning.

As soon as i saw that gap, i would have been off the throttle, and covering the levers, looking at exit routes

Wonder if he got away with it, by his own admission he gave poor obs

"I could see 10 cars ahead but she was obscured" ??
 
Another reincarnation of a dead thread:)

Still valid though. After buying my 1150 in Nov 03 I got taken out when filtering. I was doing ~20mph between 2 & 3, covering the brake and clutch, alongside the rear axle of a stationery VW panel van the passenger door opens...............

Sometimes you just can't legislate for stupidity.
 
Another reincarnation of a dead thread:)

Still valid though. After buying my 1150 in Nov 03 I got taken out when filtering. I was doing ~20mph between 2 & 3, covering the brake and clutch, alongside the rear axle of a stationery VW panel van the passenger door opens...............

Sometimes you just can't legislate for stupidity.
Hope it didn't hurt too much, but it would have been funnier if it was side door of a camper.
 
Someone once said that "Experience is what you get right after you need it".

I ride down the A12 towards the Blackwall Tunnel quite often in the summer months (out of pleasure since I am entitled to free Public Transport in London). My sincere advice to you is to ride your own ride and never get sucked into what others are doing.

If the speed limit is 50 mph and the cars are doing 46 mph, then you decide just how much time you will gain by filtering. Is it worth it, do you have a loved one, can you afford time off work if things don't work out as planned?

Do not try to read the minds of the fast guys, wondering whether they really are more skillful and have faster reactions than Marc Marquez or just have a death wish. I ride at 5/10 on the way into work and arrive relaxed and refreshed by the ride. I do wonder about the guys riding at 9/10.

I wish you lots of happy commuting ..... and I'm not going to reveal my filtering speed because it is irrelevant (slow even :) )

Finally, "There are stupid motorcyclists and there are old motorcyclists, but no old, stupid motorcyclists"
 
Someone once said that "Experience is what you get right after you need it".


Finally, "There are stupid motorcyclists and there are old motorcyclists, but no old, stupid motorcyclists"

We say ... "You start with a full bag of luck, and an empty bag of experience ... the idea is to fill the bag of experience before the bag of luck has run out"

If you're riding within your limits and someone comes by much faster than you, then he (or she) is better than you ... or stupid :blast

Either way, you're right, you don't want to get sucked in :nono

It's ... "There are old motorcyclists and bold motorcyclists ... but there are no old bold motorcyclists" :thumb

"Never put your 'bike anywhere your brain wasn't five seconds earlier!"

:beerjug:
 


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