As temperatures start to go up, so do the number of motorcyclists on streets, roads, and highways. The California Highway Patrol designates May is Motorcycle Safety Awareness Month, to reduce the number of fatal and injury collisions. But CHP Officer Mike Martis says no special enforcement, activities, or events are held. Meanwhile, California officially legalized lane splitting for motorcyclists last year, the first state in the country to do that. And as the CHP urges drivers to look twice for motorcyclists, they have also been authorized to develop guidelines, to make sure lane-splitting is done in a safe and proper manner. Martis says that’s still being worked on…

click to listen to Officer Martis

Martis says motorcyclists are also seldom cited for noise, for safety reasons…

click to listen to Officer Martis

The CHP says the majority of multi-vehicle motorcycle collisions are caused when other drivers simply didn’t see the motorcyclist. Last year, 466 motorcyclists were killed in traffic collisions in California, compared to 560 in 2016. There were over 14-thousand injuries each year.