The Loud Muffler Backlash Begins...

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/edmonton/story ... bylaw.html

I like it! They're going to use sound meters so it takes away the ambiguity that we have in the HTA where it's totally up to the officer's discretion. Why leave it to discretion when you have the technology to measure it accurately.

good idea with a meter. Maybe we can get tint meters too.

I know the law may be the law , but the guys on the bikes don't really bother me. Most of the time it's some guy going through male menopause on his Harley taking his kid out for a five minute ride for an ice cream and maybe puts 200 kms on it all year, or the longest ride may be a charity run. It's the guys in these little cars with exhausts bigger than my head that run up and down the streets shaking my house, vehicle, kidneys and ears that drive me nuts.

I agree that those aren't the problem people, but I've dealt with plenty of Outlaw Bikers who flout the noise laws with their Harley's and an audiometer would be good for them.

I hate the turds that put the those fart cans on their compact cars. The four inch exhaust isn't going to make your Pontiac Sunfire any faster. MC's don't bother me too much though.

We have two issues of loud MC mufflers in our neighbourhood. One with the guy behind us who revs it up on summer weekend mornings (much to the consternation of my hubby, who, if I let him, would wrap the muffler around his neck), and a 1%er living down the street from us who blares his crappy MC radio and has a muffler even louder than the guy behind us (and who has a penchant for coming home at 4am, waking all the neighbours in the process). Our room is at the back of the house. He wakes us up even with the windows closed and A/C on.

We have a lady here whose husband has a bike, and she swears that the loud muffler saves his life. I can see the point of that, but when I'm on the QEW with transport trucks, a loud muffler isn't catching my attention as much as seeing the guy in my mirrors does.

Also, I've seen muffler noise tickets beaten in court because discretion, and what is loud is relative. In January, one guy representing himself made an excellent argument about "discretion", and produced stats on the after-market muffler he bought for his car, saying that he bought it precisely because it was the quietest muffler he could get for his vehicle, and called (successfully) into question, the discretion of the officer. With a meter, he would've lost, provided that his muffler was indeed louder than allowed.

it is articulation and how each side presents their side of the story and how gathering of evidence is done.

I ride MC, loud mufflers do nothing but disturb the neighbourhood and does not safe any lives. Want to save lives, stop wearing black leather. Wear bright coloured armoured type jackets.

If one thinks a muffler helps....turn it forward. Go to an airport, watch an airshow.....can see the F18 approach, but no noise until the bird is directly in front and increased loudness after it passes. The low tight circle is an excellent demonstration of this. Same as an MC, don't hear it on approach, beside can hear it and after it is loud.

Marquisse wrote:

We have a lady here whose husband has a bike, and she swears that the loud muffler saves his life.

I'm sure that's largely because he tells her that. Anyway, most fatal motorcycle collisions that are caused by car drivers are usually because the driver either pulled out in front of the MC, blew a stop sign where the MC had the right-of-way (particularly at rural intersections), or turned left in front of the MC. I can't believe that any one of those scenarios would be stopped by "loud pipes." Even the idea of recognizing that a motorcycle is in the blind spot due to loud pipes is dubious, unless it's almost completely by the car.

Actually, this was the best way of summarizing why the "loud pipe group" has faulty thinking on the subject:

hwybear wrote:

Go to an airport, watch an airshow.....can see the F18 approach, but no noise until the bird is directly in front and increased loudness after it passes. The low tight circle is an excellent demonstration of this. Same as an MC, don't hear it on approach, beside can hear it and after it is loud.

I friggin' hate loud pipes!!!

Hwybear, now that you've got me thinking about it, I don't hear an MC until it has or is in the process of passing me. It's always a distant noise whereby I can't determine its location - whether it is behind me to the left/right, or a few cars back.

RI, I HATE noisy MCs as well. That became one of my biggest pet peeves upon moving here. I think that if buddy behind us revs his up again this summer, I'm going to go out to my 2nd floor balcony and tell him to knock it off. It's ridiculously early in the morning, and it really is incredibly loud.

As for the 1%er, I'll let him be. He's ugly, mean looking, scruffy, and he scares me. LOL If he's blaring his music with his chopper at 4am, he already knows it's disturbing others. He simply doesn't care. Calling uniformed officers for that would do nothing. He would laugh at them, being the "rebel" he fashions himself as being.

Radar Identified wrote:

Marquisse wrote:

We have a lady here whose husband has a bike, and she swears that the loud muffler saves his life.

I'm sure that's largely because he tells her that. Anyway, most fatal motorcycle collisions that are caused by car drivers are usually because the driver either pulled out in front of the MC, blew a stop sign where the MC had the right-of-way (particularly at rural intersections), or turned left in front of the MC. I can't believe that any one of those scenarios would be stopped by "loud pipes." Even the idea of recognizing that a motorcycle is in the blind spot due to loud pipes is dubious, unless it's almost completely by the car.

Actually, this was the best way of summarizing why the "loud pipe group" has faulty thinking on the subject:

hwybear wrote:

Go to an airport, watch an airshow.....can see the F18 approach, but no noise until the bird is directly in front and increased loudness after it passes. The low tight circle is an excellent demonstration of this. Same as an MC, don't hear it on approach, beside can hear it and after it is loud.

I friggin' hate loud pipes!!!

the most used excuse when a person in a car hits a motorcycle, is "i didn't see him"

i have been riding bikes for over 25 years and i have ridden everything from dirt bikes to sport bikes to harleys and now with my custom all in traffic....i can't count on both hands and feet how many times i have been cut off or almost knocked down by morons in cars before i got my harley and every time they say the same *EDIT*, sorry didn't see you

after i bought my harley which i had for 3 years and now am 3 more years into my custom i have never been cut off....

why? because they know i am there do to my after market pipes. as for your airplane reference, you have got to be kidding me, those things travel close to or faster then the speed of sound....

last week i got pulled over by a regional officer who said he knew i was coming cause he heard me before he saw me so that right there also proves your statement to be ridiculous...

i agree that a lot of people out there do abuse it by running straight pipes with no baffles and that even irritates me but when you have a v-twin m/c with a motor comparable to a v-8 it is going to be louder then a 250cc scooter no matter what you put in it for baffles....

This is VERY true actually. I ride a motorcycle as well (a very quiet 83 Honda CX 650) and it is totally true if you have load pipes you ARE given more respect just simply because drivers around you are more aware you are there.

And as for the theory/opinion that you can't hear a bike until they pass you I will agree it is not as load until the bike passes you but you can definitely hear a loud bike long before it is in your rear or side view mirrors.

Good example is a bike cresting a hill, you can hear it before you see it with your position being in front of the approaching bike.

Common driver habits such as no blind check, texting, eating, playing with other electronics, distracting passengers (kids), means it is better to be more noticeable from a noise standpoint than a visual standpoint because so many drivers just aren't paying attention visually but it's pretty hard to ignore or not pay attention to a very loud piped motorcycle driving anywhere near your vehicle. Whether it be out of annoyance or jealousy.

Cars these days are designed to minimize the amount of noise that will enter the passenger compartment. By the time I've heard any noise, particularly if I'm on a rural highway at an intersection controlled by a stop sign, if I were some twit who weren't paying attention, it would've been too late. As for stopping a lane change if you're in their blind spot - that I can believe. That said, I've never heard any motorcycle, even with thunderingly loud pipes, approach from behind until the guy is about two or three car lengths away. I've always seen them long before I heard them. Same thing with cresting a hill. You'd have to have your windows rolled down to hear them over the rise.

Size is a big difference. I see lots of guys on smaller bikes get cut off, but not so much larger ones. By the way, my father-in-law rides a Harley. One of his friends, who is also a Harley owner, was killed last year on a highway by a driver who "didn't see him" (driver went through a stop sign). He had deafeningly loud pipes. They didn't save him, and the driver didn't notice until it was too late.

You are right, if a driver has his/her volume cranked or there are lots of hearing distractions in the drivers car (passengers talking, cell phone, crying kids, movie being played loudly then yeah I could understand the argument of not hearing a loud piped motorcycle approaching near your vehicle.

But this technically should never be the case because you should never be in an atmosphere in your vehicle that you can't hear things going on outside your vehicle. Ex. Screeching tires ahead (warns you to slow down fast before you see brake lights), emergency vehicle sirens - officer, ambulance, fire truck, or another drivers horn warning you about something (hopefully not just the middle finger horn use) or finally an oncoming motorcycle (with loud pipes) warning you that you should not make your left turn in front of this small and fast moving vehicle that a visually distracted driver may have missed.

Making a vehicle aerodynamic and reducing wind noise does not mean you can't hear a loud motorcycle approaching around you. If they did make a vehicle even close to sound proof from the outside environment that would be very dangerous. As sounds are very important when driving. I'm not saying you can expect to hear a motorcycle with loud pipes 1 or 2 km away but definitely within 300-500 meters you can start hearing a unique and loud exhaust sound assuming the cabin noise in your vehicle isn't ridiculous which in a lot of drivers cases it is too loud and is as bad as talking on the cell phone.

Overall if all drivers were perfect then loud pipes would be pointless (other than to be cool)

And yes in certain situations if the driver is distracted enough visually/hearing then no amount of sound from an exhaust will help the motorcyclist from trying to keep them self safe from the very unsafe driver.

And finally I will also state that a lot of riders do abuse loud pipes and don't care about the slight safety advantage and rev way too much at stop lights or during the middle of the night. These are the riders that should be targeted.

All of these opinions coming from a rider of a heavily baffled super quiet 83 honda CX650. (A year when Honda was trying to flaunt how environmentally friendly it was)

I blame GIRLS!

If they didn't look at the cool guy with the loud engine when he hammers it for attention, there would be no market for low-restriction mufflers.

But the fact is, load pipes ARE cool! I'm just not entirely sure how one defines cool. In fact, defining it wouldn't be cool

We can legislate ways to water down young males to a point where three pens in a pocket protector are mandatory, or we can just accept that a LOT of people still get a sense of excitement from blasting a little "attitude" out the tailpipe

My first car was a '74 Astre (pure JUNK!). First thing I did was hack off the stock muffler and install a Thrush muffler (you know, the one with the cigar-chompin' woodpecker painted on it). Man, I was cool!! LOL

LOL

HighMileJon wrote:

Making a vehicle aerodynamic and reducing wind noise does not mean you can't hear a loud motorcycle approaching around you. If they did make a vehicle even close to sound proof from the outside environment that would be very dangerous.

I'm not referring to the aerodynamics and wind noise. Much of the extra crash protection (side impact beams, side air bag pockets, etc) built into cars now all have the effect of reducing the amount of exterior noise you can hear. Also, the pipes are pointed rearwards, and sound propagates like any other wave: Most of it goes in the direction that the sound source is "pointed" in. Most of the sound wave from an MC pipe goes to the rear of the bike. Example: Yesterday I had an MC with loud pipes pull onto the on-ramp next to me on the DVP. I saw him in the rearview, but I didn't hear his pipes until he was 1 car length from me. That was with the engine idle, windows rolled up, radio off.

Sirens, conversely, have the speakers aimed in all directions. The sound wave is equally strong in all directions, that's why it's easier to hear than an MC pipe if you're in front of the MC. I still think hwybear's original statement is right - if you want the pipes to be effective in warning drivers, turn them forward.

The bigger problem, I think, isn't so much pipes or anything like that, it's that many "cagers" have limited (if any) respect for those on motorcycles. But that's a different story...

if he was only 1 car length behind you when you first heard him then i wouldn't consider his pipes loud, lol....

LeafsChopper wrote:

if he was only 1 car length behind you when you first heard him then i wouldn't consider his pipes loud, lol....

"Loud" is relative, after all...