I live in California, and I almost always go to the front of traffic when waiting at a light, and I've even begun to notice that a lot of people will see me coming up between traffic and move slightly over to let me by. Only once did someone actually turn to block me.
But when traffic is moving, I basically work my way through traffic only splitting to change lanes but for the most part going with the flow of traffic. I also rarely drive in traffic because I usually only ride on my days off when I head up the coast to hit the canyons.
I also understand that people do get "freaked out" when someone screams past them, inches from the side of their car. Aside from the shock, a lot of people I've talked to are afraid when motorcycles split lanes because they don't want to injure someone that is passing them that they never saw coming. With this in mind, I'm always conscious of moving smoothly past cars if I do lane split.
