Agreed with those before: If you have a close call every other day you're definitely riding the wrong way! I ride a CBR600RR and the only close calls I have are folks swerving from the middle lane to get the next freeway exit without actually looking and those who move toward the middle when they see me lane-splitting in rush hour traffic. The only time I lane-split at speed is when the driver obviously goes to one side of the lane for me (usually the fast lane) and stays there. That's my green light to pass between. Smart? Not the brightest of ideas. Stupid? No.
For those whining about the mean, mean LA freeways, try riding up here at Lake Berryessa, terrible roads, hairpins, gravel on alot of the hairpins, and boaters who don't like using the turn-offs. Go longer than 6 months riding that every other day without laying your bike down or becoming a 200 pound hood ornament and you're a better rider for it. So far, I've got about 10 months there since the last time I laid it down (40 MPH, lowside in a hairpin w/mud/gravel)
Call me over-cautious, but if there were hairpin turns with gravel on the turns....I just wouldn't ride there, or at least I wouldn't be doing 40MPH over the turns. Call me an amateur or whatever, but the only time I've ever low-sided was on gravel attempting to pull off the road, and it sucked. It was only about 20mph when I hit the ground but I'd rather not try it at 40.