Filtering. It?s one of the many benefits of riding a motorcycle. And whilst the act of overtaking traffic by riding between lanes is perfectly legal (for the most part), anyone that?s ever done any filtering will have almost certainly received some sort of abuse from upset (and frankly jealous) car drivers. And that?s not the only problem. Because whilst filtering is legal for the most part, there?s still a very good chance you?ll get nicked if you do it wrong.

There is more than one mention of filtering in the Highway Code, and nowhere does it say you must never do it. We can take from that, that filtering, in general, is allowed. Where it?s not allowed, is at the front of a queue of traffic waiting at a pedestrian crossing. That?s to say, you can pass everything in the queue, except the vehicle at the very front.
Other than that, you?re free to filter as much as you want, with one caveat; you?ve got to do it safely.

The problem there is, there?s no hard and fast rule to say what is and isn?t considered ?safe?. It would be hard to argue that nipping through stationary traffic at 5mph is dangerous. At the same time, it?d be hard to argue that threading your way through that same stationary traffic jam at 70mph isn?t dangerous, even if you are still within the road?s speed limit.

Grey area

There?s quite a large middle ground though. The line between what?s ?safe and legal?, and ?unsafe and illegal?, is somewhere in a massive grey area. And exactly wher...