Lane splitting to cheat your way through traffic is different than lane splitting to weave through vehicles driving at the normal posted speed limit with sufficient gaps between them.
Through traffic, it is a problem when people think they can cut ahead and then this slows down the person they cut in front of, same as if you did it at a fast food restaurant or wherever.
If you're waiting in line, inside McDonald's, and you're fat, but I am skinny so I can slide past you, do I then get to just take a place in line in front of you? That is what it often amounts to.
As far as open road goes, going a little faster than traffic so other drivers have a chance to notice you, shouldn't be a problem. Going faster than that, where they don't notice you and are instead startled that they nearly ran into you is a problem. You shouldn't put yourself into a space too quickly for someone else to notice you, drivers can't be swiveling their head constantly like they are a carnival ride, rather it is up to the motorcyclist to put themselves in an area the cager can see, for long enough to be seen, before pulling a maneuver.
I know that rains on the parade of people who just want to zip around everyone else in traffic, risking their own safety then blaming society for the obviousness of their mistake. When cars do that we call them wreckless.
The argument is something like "I was in the right" but being in the right doesn't account for the massive number of errors that drivers make every day. Bikers make mistakes too, like those I've already mentioned. Being in the right doesn't make a person invulnerable to serious injury, which is the paramount issue.
Ultimately, lane splitting is a really stupid idea. The whole concept of lanes is to keep any and every motor vehicle, in their own lane, specifically NOT to try to cram more vehicles into a space without having a marked separation between them. Advocates of lane splitting are fairly idiotic for claiming it reduces traffic because it slows everyone else down when they have to be so much more cautiously looking for bikers with too little patience to wait their turn in traffic. Notice i wrote traffic, meaning there isn't substantial space between vehicles.
I am in favor of highways being built with a narrow lane exclusively for motorcycles. They should not have to weave in and out of larger vehicles that pose a harm to them, and that should allow them to get to where they are going faster, until it then becomes a battle of lane splitting between faster and slower bikers.
Ultimately, if you are in that much of a hurry, that's your problem and it shouldn't be someone else's burden. Is it safer for the biker or more dangerous? It isn't relevant, except at stop signs/lights, it is reasonable to be off to the side so someone doesn't slam into you, but to still wait your turn in line.
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