If I lived in CA, they'd be great for lane splitting. Now, I left the state about 20 years ago, but I still visit often and when I lived there, did a lot of lane splitting (commuted on bikes for five years).
Let me say that lane splitting is no piece of cake! it might look easy to all of you from back east but you have to be on your toes and it can get pretty damn tedious too. People sometime get pissed and I have had a couple of cars try to "cut me off" by moving toward the far side of the lane (one car tried to run me into the curb in Watts!). In addition, in an effort to increase capacity, they have real narrow lanes on some of the freeways. Check out the 110 going through LA any time of day and you'll see what a pain that freeway is. When I lane split on my bike, my commute took just under an hour, where as it might take an hour and a half in the car.
While you might have seen a FJR or C14 split, one rule is the wider the bike, the harder it is to split. I had no problems on my old Madura 1200 (narrow bike) or even my katana 1100, but the C14? When i go down to LA next month, I doubt that I'll lane split.
Next time you say CA sucks and you are glad you are in whatever city you live in, think that when you are on your bike in massive traffic; think how nice it would be if you were allowed to lane split.