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Comment by alistairSH | Hacker News Reader

But loud pipes save lives! /s

We have a similar problem. Replace "motorcycle" with "bro-dozer" and make it 4am.

Noise sucks. And since the pandemic lockdowns have lifted, it's even more abrasive. Those few months of relative quiet were marvelous. Where I live, it's a lot of tire noise from a highway over a mile away - just a constant background "brrrrrr" that I didn't notice before and can't ignore today.

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> But loud pipes save lives! /s

Bikers actually say that with a straight face. It drives me bonkers. If I look at any list on the internet about top 10 ways to stay safe on a motorcycle, none of those lists will include "loud pipes". Yet, those same bikers will ignore other items on those safety lists like wearing brightly colored high visibility jacket/vest.

Next time you are in a car driving next to a Harley, listen to it. It will be quiet even at a stoplight and inaudible at speed.

The road is a noisy place. Cars are soundproofed to deal with that. A loud engine antagonizes everyone not driving but drivers won't even hear it.

> Next time you are in a car driving next to a Harley, listen to it. It will be quiet even at a stoplight and inaudible at speed.

Do they make Harleys totally different where you're from? Serious question, maybe your country has noise regulations the US doesn't, or something, so they have to modify them for that market. This isn't at all true in the US.

The post you're replying to is not about Harleys being silent in absolute sense but about their noise not standing out to drivers over the noise of other cars, car's own noise, and sound insulation.

Right, I haven't found that to be true at all. Some are louder than others (I assume they've been modded so?) but they're ~always quite loud and do not fade into the general background noise of the road.

I found it to be true, all bikes are virtually silent when I drive. All the road noise is just monotonous hum in the background even with music off.

Huh. Motorcycles are on a pretty short list of types of vehicles that startle or distract me with noise fairly often, along with emergency vehicles (popping on their sirens) and semi trucks (if they happen to rev to go up a hill or pass while right alongside me, or use a Jake Brake while fairly close).

Cars almost never do unless they've clearly got some severe problems with their mufflers, even though ordinary non emergency cars must represent something like 80% of vehicles I encounter on highways in my city. Even for the loud-bass types, the radius in which I can hear that and the volume is lower than typical "Hog"-alike motorcycles. Motorcycles are also the only non-emergency vehicles that sometimes sound really loud inside my house about 300 meters—and a bunch of trees—from the nearest highway (though that's mostly a couple of jerks who seem to like to race on that stretch of highway every so often, on what sound like racing-style bikes, not Harleys)

Motorcycles are loud outside the car, nobody argues that. Most cars have heavy sound insulation though. E.g. I can hear emergency sirens but just because of the different spectrum, if it had been engine sound at the same level I'd likely would not notice most of the time.

I mean from inside a car. The sound is very noticeable, stopped or within 2-3 car lengths while driving.

If I'm driving 30 or 40 mph then I will not hear a loud motorcycle directly next to me. Between my radio, my engine noise, my tire noise, and whatever insulation there is, I just won't hear it.

It's not generally other drivers that are detrimentally impacted by loud cycles/vehicles (though there have been numerous times I got spooked by a rider gunning it to lane split next to me). The problem is for the people relaxing, trying to unwind in their homes being constantly assaulted by road noise.

Edit: and the idea that a big Harley chopper idling at a stoplight isn't ridiculously loud is absurd. "FUD DUD DUD DUD DUD"

Maybe newer stock Harleys. When owners replace stock tailpipes with aftermarket ones, that's when the noise issue really comes in. Straight shotgun pipes are loud and have no baffles.

um... harleys have a wide range of sounds depending on accessories and aftermarket mods. I can definitely hear one idling if it's next to me.

While driving I-10 through Jacksonville, I witnessed a biker on a Harley splitting the lanes, riding on the dash. Hearing the rumble from well behind, I held my position in the lane as he passed but the next set of cars in front of me wasn’t as prepared. When the biker slipped between the two cars in front, he decided to gun it, scaring the driver in front of me to swerve across the interstate, bouncing off both guardrails on each side of the interstate, like a pinball. Nearly caused a big pile up, while the biker motored off with his obnoxiously loud pipes. Granted most bikes aren’t this loud, but there are plenty that will rattle your bones as they pass.

> Cars are soundproofed to deal with that.

That's why dodge charger owners always put the most loud obnoxious exhaust ever on them. I used to have a Chrysler 300 and it was THE QUIETEST car I've ever been in, by a longshot.

A stock Harley is relatively quiet, although it's still a bit louder than any modern car I've seen. The problem is that people regularly install aftermarket mufflers which do not muffle, even in states where this is theoretically illegal, and I've definitely heard them drown out my car radio in chk-chk-chk a few times.

I haven’t found that to be true. At speed, maybe. But at a stop light, I can hear the potato-potato of just about every big V-twin.

> those same bikers will ignore other items on those safety lists like wearing brightly colored high visibility jacket/vest.

If anything, the black leather jacket is practically a uniform.

> But loud pipes save lives

The argument falls flat on its face when you extrapolate it to any other medium. Cyclists and pedestrians should be going around with boomboxes attaches to their bodies.

I love the sound of a good vehicle. But pump that sound in for the driver, not for the unconsenting bystander.

When I first heard of the new-ish trend where car makers are now playing fake engine noise through the car's speaker system[1], I thought "how stupid and phony". But, the more I think about it, it makes a whole lot of sense. Obnoxious engine noise is mostly for the benefit of vain drivers who need validation--so just play it at the driver, and keep it out of the community environment. It's a win-win. Driver gets to drive around hearing his loud vroom-vroom noises, and the public benefits from the quietness of modern engine design. There's no valid reason to deliberately project your vroom-vroom sounds at everyone else around you when you don't have to.

1: https://motorandwheels.com/cars-with-active-sound-design/

Any evidence against this claim though?

Best I can find is this:

https://www.autoweek.com/news/industry-news/a35952569/loud-p...

There's loud pipes, and then there's LOUD PIPES. I'm a motorcycle rider with an aftermarket exhaust, but I didn't put it on to make it louder, I simply prefer the different visual look of the aftermarket exhaust (undertail vs underslung). The new exhaust is slightly louder (~5dB) and has more of a bass characteristic, but it's certainly not obnoxious. Do I get noticed more? Yes. However I also know I can start my motorcycle at 7 in the morning and go for a ride and my neighbours aren't inconvenienced (I've asked them), so it's not a black or white situation.

I think most riders are in this camp as well - they just want their bike to look and sound good (good!=loud necessarily), rather than be obnoxious, but there's a small number of riders that just want volume for the LOOK AT ME factor. I'm 100% against those folk - they're just being selfish and spoiling it for everyone else.

Curiously, Harley sounds don't raise my hackles the way a loud sport-bike does. What are they, Ducati's or something? There is just something just so shrill about their sound.

Most likely the Japanese bikes. A lot of Ducati's run in a parallel twin cylinder format, which doesn't rev as high as the inline 4's.

Captain Pedantic, swooping in to nitpick with one correction, Citizen: Ducatis run V-twins these days, much like Harleys (though that is where the comparison stops). Ducati did make parallel twins some forty years ago, and they were...less than reliable.

It was a Kawasaki.

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