Lane Splitting and Filtering in Arizona — What Changes on September 12, 2026

Lane filtering has been legal in Arizona since 2022. Lane splitting has never been. What changes on September 12, 2026 is not whether splitting is allowed — it is what happens to you when you do it.

Until that date, splitting is a civil traffic violation. After it, it is a crime.

What HB 2941 Does

HB 2941, signed June 22, 2026, adds one sentence to Arizona’s reckless driving statute, A.R.S. § 28-693:

A person who operates a motorcycle in violation of section 28-903, subsection B or C is guilty of reckless driving.

That is the whole change, and it is a large one. Under § 28-693, reckless driving carries:

	First offense	Second within 24 months
Charge	Class 2 misdemeanor	Class 1 misdemeanor
Jail	—	Not eligible for probation until at least 20 days served
License	Judge may suspend up to 90 days	Department shall suspend for one year

The twenty days are not a maximum a judge might impose. They are a floor the statute puts underneath probation eligibility.

The bill contains no effective-date clause, so it runs on the general effective date for the 2026 session. The Legislature adjourned sine die on June 13, 2026, which puts the general effective date at September 12, 2026.

The Line Between Filtering and Splitting

This is the part riders get wrong, and after September the cost of getting it wrong goes up sharply.

A.R.S. § 28-903 has three subsections that matter:

Subsection B — you may not overtake and pass in the same lane occupied by the vehicle being overtaken.

Subsection C — you may not operate between lanes of traffic or between adjacent rows of vehicles.

Those two are what become reckless driving.

Subsection F is untouched. Legal lane filtering survives HB 2941 exactly as it was, and it is still legal when all of these are true:

• you are on a two-wheeled motorcycle
• the vehicles you are passing are stopped, not merely slow
• the street has two or more lanes in the same direction
• the posted speed limit is 45 mph or less
• you are travelling under 15 mph

Miss any one of those and you are no longer filtering under subsection F — you are operating between lanes under subsection C. Before September 12 that is a ticket. After, it is a criminal charge.

Two failure modes are worth naming, because they are the common ones. Traffic that is rolling rather than stopped is not covered. And a 45 mph limit is the ceiling — filtering on a 50 mph arterial was never legal, and it is now reckless driving.

How This Affects Your Injury Claim

This is where the change actually bites, and it is the part no one is writing about.

If you were filtering legally under subsection F and a driver turned into you or opened a door, the driver is at fault. Your lawful filtering is not comparative fault. Nothing in HB 2941 changes that.

If you were splitting and you get hurt, your position is materially worse than it was before September 12 — not because your riding changed, but because the label did.

Arizona recognizes negligence per se: violating a safety statute is not merely evidence of negligence, it establishes it. Before HB 2941, an insurer defending your claim had to argue that riding between lanes was unreasonable. Now a reckless driving conviction hands them a criminal finding on the same facts, and reckless driving is a far heavier word in front of a jury than “civil traffic violation.”

Arizona is a pure comparative fault state under A.R.S. § 12-2505, so you can still recover even if you are found mostly at fault — your award is reduced by your share rather than eliminated. That protection is real and it is unusual; most states would bar you entirely somewhere between 50% and 51%. But “you can still recover something” is a much weaker position than the one you had before, and the reduction can be severe.

There is a second-order problem too. A criminal charge arising from the same crash creates a parallel proceeding, and anything you say in it can surface in the civil case. If you are cited for reckless driving after a crash, talk to a lawyer before you talk to anyone about either case.

Motorcycle Accidents Are Severe

Whether you’re filtering or riding normally, motorcycle accidents produce some of the most devastating injuries we see — road rash, broken bones, traumatic brain injuries, and spinal cord damage. The physics are brutal: a motorcyclist has virtually no protection compared to a car occupant.

If you’ve been in a motorcycle accident in Phoenix, call the Law Badgers at (833) DTF-IGHT. We fight for riders.

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Sources. HB 2941, Laws 2026, Ch. 261 (signed and filed June 22, 2026); A.R.S. § 28-903 (motorcycle operation, lane filtering conditions in subsection F); A.R.S. § 28-693 (reckless driving); A.R.S. § 12-2505 (comparative negligence). The 57th Legislature adjourned sine die on June 13, 2026; laws without their own effective-date clause take effect on the 91st day after adjournment.

This page describes a law that has not yet taken effect. Nothing here is legal advice for a specific case.