[sendler]

Links from the Americade site urging motorcycle owners to keep their bikes more quiet so that motorcycling can continue to grow without predjudice from cagers.
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Americade :: TourExpo :: The Worlds Largest Motorcycle Rally, Convention :: Lake George :: New York
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Excessive Motorcycle Sound
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New York State Motorcycle Noise Limits

 

[RVOKNIO]

The AMA sure likes to use the word "excessive" and it's variations excessively.

∞

 

[motorpsycho]

Hmm... Sucks to be a motorcyclist in New York and I do agree on limiting unnecessary loud exhaust notes caused by aftermarket pipes but they should also mandate other noise issues from those who decide to blast their stereo systems to the moon.

 

[250 Tom]

Well I wont be going through New York anytime to soon. Im afraid its only the beggining and more states will follow this direction

 

[ptcary]

At my MSF course Friday night I talked with a guy who rode in on his brand new Sportster 1200 and he was talking about it 'needing' louder pipes to be safer out on the road.

 

[sendler]

Most

Most states have noise laws. I'm not really a hater when it comes to loud pipes but I do like to keep my bike legal so I know I won't get stopped if I go out of town. It would have been easier to list the states that don't have motorcycle exhaust noise limits. The following states have laws. California, Arizona, Connecticut, Colorado, DC, Florida, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois,
Kentucky, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, Nevada, New Hampshire, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Washington, All of Europe?.
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Anyone can make a can lined with stuffing and charge you $400. There is no engineering in that. All of these slip ons are essentially the same. Way too loud. I could do that in my garage for $40 if I tried hard enough. I challenge TwoBros, Yoshi, etal, to make a muffler that weighs 5 pounds like they do now, gives me the 8% power increase like they do now, and is reasonably quiet, bearing a stamp that the cops can see stating it is legal. I saw some dynos of the new CBR1000R with and without a slip on and they are virtually the same. A legal exhaust can be a powerful exhaust.
Isn't there any European after market exhaust maker that makes a good slip on that is legal? I was hoping the Leo Vince from Italy would be better but it is just more of the same. A can lined with stuffing.
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Splatt's Motorcycle Laws in 50 States

 

[motorpsycho]

At my MSF course Friday night I talked with a guy who rode in on his brand new Sportster 1200 and he was talking about it 'needing' louder pipes to be safer out on the road.

This has already been discussed before on this forum; louder pipes will not make other drivers more aware of your presence no matter how deafening your exhaust is. The only way to be safe on the road is to only rely on your skills safely maneuvering a bike and to never rely on other motorists because that ingredient alone is enough to make a recipe for disaster.

 

[Amontgomery]

Count me in the "loud pipes save lives" camp.

If you are coming up on a car to pass, and your bike makes more noise, it will get noticed more than if it did not make noise. In that one instance, having a louder pipe can save your life. Even if you keep your time in the drivers blind spot to a minimum, the driver can still swerve into your lane with devastating results. Adding the loudness on to of alertness and safe driving practices can only make you safer.

Another instance is a blind curve where a car could pull out in front of you before he sees you approaching. Hearing a loud bike coming might be enough to cause the driver to pause. Again, combined with safe riding, being more noticeable will help you stay safe.

Put it this way, we all know reflective clothing and bright colors get noticed by drivers, and because of this fact we encourage new riders to choose gear that stands out, to get them noticed. Why would we not encourage riders(manufacturers?) to have louder bikes (not deafening, but not the puff puff noise of a stock 250r)?

 

[sendler]

Rudeness

Why would we not encourage riders(manufacturers?) to have louder bikes (not deafening, but not the puff puff noise of a stock 250r)?

Waking up 100's of people at 5:45am as I ride through the side streets for 5 miles on the way to the highway just because I am unlucky enough to have to go to work early is not something I am willing to do. I know that my own personal schedule is tight. When I am supposed to be asleep, I need to be asleep, and cannot afford to be awakened at the wrong time by a loud motorcycle. People who use motorcycles as toys have a different perspective. I ride for transportation.

 

[live_to_ride]

I guess I fall into the rider population of enjoying the low throaty growl of a nice exhaust. Certainly I don't endorse breaking the sound barrier along annoying my neighbours, but I don't wish to be in complete stealth mode either. I'm already small enough to be run over by distracted cagers. My question is, are bikers the only ones addressing this exhaust issue? What about cars, trucks etc that blast the general peaceful enviornment? Just an observation.

 

[furious_blue]

I don't care for loud pipes in urban environments. I have noticed though that when commuting in dense traffic the bikes with loud pipes get noticed by the other drivers. When the sound of the loud pipes is coming up from the rear, many drivers hear them coming and move aside a little to let them pass. Never happens with the quiet legal bikes.

What I'd really like to have for this bike, for the commute, is something like the National Cycle 'Peacemakers' for Harleys (or whatever they were called). They have motor controlled baffles. When you want the bike quiet you set the baffles on quiet mode. When you get out of town you can flip a handlebar mounted switch to operate the motor to open up the baffles and have the sound (and horsepower) turned up.

 

[Brian]

I have had cars move out of my way when I am splitting lanes, with stock exhaust. I guess they saw my head light.
I worked with a bikers biker. This prick was a loud pipe idiot. So one morning this fool passes me in my car on the freeway, and I never had a chance to see him, because he was going too fast, and I have no idea what lane he came from when he passed me, but I never heard him until he was right next to me. So I think that if you are of the 'loud pipes save lives' camp, you need to point your bazooka forward. At freeway speeds you cant hear them until they are just passing you. This particular fool was in more accidents than any other rider I know, and amazingly it was always the other persons fault. An I guess the pipes just werent loud enough.

 

[motorpsycho]

Count me in the "loud pipes save lives" camp.

If you are coming up on a car to pass, and your bike makes more noise, it will get noticed more than if it did not make noise. In that one instance, having a louder pipe can save your life. Even if you keep your time in the drivers blind spot to a minimum, the driver can still swerve into your lane with devastating results. Adding the loudness on to of alertness and safe driving practices can only make you safer.

Another instance is a blind curve where a car could pull out in front of you before he sees you approaching. Hearing a loud bike coming might be enough to cause the driver to pause. Again, combined with safe riding, being more noticeable will help you stay safe.

Not to offend you or anything but all of the scenarios you've posted could easily be solved and avoided by just operating the horn like what most (if not all) third world countries have always been doing. Also, it is a more cost effective option to gain one's attention by utilizing the stock horn as opposed to purchasing an aftermarket pipe.

 

[Mylabs]

I have had cars move out of my way when I am splitting lanes, with stock exhaust. I guess they saw my head light.
I worked with a bikers biker. This prick was a loud pipe idiot. So one morning this fool passes me in my car on the freeway, and I never had a chance to see him, because he was going too fast, and I have no idea what lane he came from when he passed me, but I never heard him until he was right next to me. So I think that if you are of the 'loud pipes save lives' camp, you need to point your bazooka forward. At freeway speeds you cant hear them until they are just passing you. This particular fool was in more accidents than any other rider I know, and amazingly it was always the other persons fault. An I guess the pipes just werent loud enough.

I believe in goes with the situation. Some low speed instance its more likely to be heard, but like you said at freeway speeds, not gonna hear it until it is too late. You also have to remember that people in the cars and what not may be texting or whatever and still be oblivous to their surroundings(im guilty of doing that sometimes haha). For the most part, a loud pipe only helped during low speed situations (parking lot, low speed lane splitting, etc)

For most people on the road it's considered annoying and looked down upon. I dont mind it too much, but there are times when an exhaust is just too **** loud.

 

[eil]

Adding the loudness on to of alertness and safe driving practices can only make you safer.

I thought this was already widely known as a myth, especially among bikers...

At speed, a car driver _generally_ cannot hear a motorcycle until it's already beside or in front of them. Regardless of the how loud the exhaust has been modified to be. The only time you can hear a motorcycle coming up from behind is at low speeds or a dead stop and not always then.

It's all thanks to physics. Sound travels through air, right? More specifically, air acts as a medium through which vibrations (sound waves) propagate. You also should already know that it travels pretty fast though air. Faster than any street-legal vehicle, but much slower than light.

So if sound travels faster than two hypothetical vehicles in question, why can't cagers hear approaching motorcycles? Three factors:

1. Movement. Picture this: Object A is stationary. Object B is stationary as well, but situated about 25 yards/meters away. Object B makes a noise at some arbitrary volume. Air is not a perfect conductor of sound, so the noise is attenuated to about 75% of its original volume by the time it reaches object A. Now, put the objects in motion at 60mph. Even though the distance between the objects is the same, the noise has to travel though significantly more air to reach object B, thus even more attenuation (loss of volume). If you've ever watched a fish try to swim upstream against a strong current, it's the same concept.

2. Direction. Sound from a vehicle exhaust is highly directional. The exhaust sound coming out of the pipe is going almost entirely in one direction: to the rear. The car in front of you is in the exact opposite direction. When you're cruising down the road on your modded-out hog and you think the exhaust sounds pretty good and throaty, it's probably deafening to anyone less than 1/2 mile behind you. But the car 20 feet in front of you hasn't even noticed you yet. The only time they're likely to hear anything at all is if your exhaust sound happens to bounce off another object like a bridge or billboard, but that's before factor 3 comes into play...

3. Ambient noise. Modern cars can be pretty quiet machines when equipped with proper tires, driving at moderate speed, and when few interior distractions are present. That is unfortunately not the case in the vast majority of vehicles I've been in. Bad tires, poor road conditions, excessive engine noise, a blaring radio, children, cell phones, air vent noise, wind noise (especially with the windows down) all greatly raise the noise floor in your typical automobile and positively demolish any chance you ever had of getting the driver's attention with your loud exhaust.

Now, I'm not saying that nobody ever hears a motorcycle before they see it. I'm saying that it's the exception rather than the rule, especially in common everyday driving situations. If you like having a loud exhaust, that's fine. Just don't think it adds any significant amount of safety to your riding. You get far better safety value by making yourself *visually* noticeable via a white helmet, high-viz garments, reflective surfaces, etc.

Also, I agree with the articles that loud bikes give two-wheeled enthusiasts in general a bad name. Nobody likes to be cruising down the road on a hot day and have to cover their ears or put up their windows while a biker passes by at 190 decibels.

 

[bungie4]

I thought this was already widely known as a myth, especially among bikers...

Nicely done eil.

So it amounts to "Loud pipes. Little Penis". I've got a modded 2Bros, my peepee is only a little small

 

[GreyMatter]

"Manufacturers producing motorcycles that meet the appropriate federal standards should continue to educate their dealers and customers that louder exhaust systems can decrease the performance of motorcycles."

Higher decibels means lower horsepower/torque? Interesting.... lolz

 

[Domm]

Also, please note :
Motorcycles are not allowed in Old Quebec. This is done to reduce levels of noise.

More and more small towns in Quebec are passing legislation to dissallow motorcycles completely due to loud pipes.

How long till US cities start adopting this mentality ?
All this for a mythical thought that ''loud pipes save lives''.

That'll be all great when you can't go anywhere on your bike anymore.. THEN loud pipes will indeed have saved lives.

 

[sendler]

Banned

Also, please note :
Motorcycles are not allowed in Old Quebec. This is done to reduce levels of noise.

More and more small towns in Quebec are passing legislation to dissallow motorcycles completely due to loud pipes.

How long till US cities start adopting this mentality ?
All this for a mythical thought that ''loud pipes save lives''.

That'll be all great when you can't go anywhere on your bike anymore.. THEN loud pipes will indeed have saved lives.

Wow! That is insane that motorcycles are BANNED! There must be some way to lobby and get that situation turned around. Small motorcycles and scooters must be promoted not prohibited.

 

[Mongoose]

I think that until they control other noises (ie. jake brakes on trucks, insanely annoying loud bass, loud pipes on "classic" muscle cars) then they should close the book.... HOWEVER..... some bikers do make it worse for others. I just put the Yoshi on my bike but I do use the silencer that came with it so it is not really louder than 90db (which in comparison is no louder than a ride on mower). Some of these straight pipe harleys that go by my house are literally so loud that stuff in my house shakes and you can see kids in the neighborhood cover their ears cause it hurts their eardrums. That is way too much! my muffler at least has some packing.... those straight pipes are just that.... straight from the block with no intention on silencing. its ridiculous. Not to mention that those same pipes are proven to reduce HP by up to 15%.