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Comment by dsizzle | Hacker News Reader

> Some cars and many motorcycles, depending on the road and driving style, will easily exceed the 95 and 80 decibel limits straight from the factory. Based on Car and Driver testing, examples include the 2016 Porsche 911 GT3 RS (108 decibels) and the 2019 Chevrolet Corvette ZR1 and 2019 McLaren 720S Spider, both at 99 decibels.

Seems crazy to me that manufacturers are selling cars that are basically designed to be a nuisance.

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Cars generally aren’t even that loud when compared to some Harley Davidsons. They’re literally continuous fireworks in the street and will trigger anti theft systems.

People tend to modify their motorcycles to be louder. A legitimate reason to do this is for highway safety, but you can do that and be able to drive quiet where it will bother people... lots of people like the noise and drive obnoxiously because it's fun and don't care about the neighbors.

It's not that they don't care about the neighbors... actively harming the neighbors is the entire reason it's fun. It's the school bully who grows up and can't keep punching people willy-nilly, but they can aggravate everyone in sight, and if someone says something to them they and their biker friends will beat them up. It's a way to feel powerful -- the ability to harm others with impunity -- and is observed in all kinds of people from bikers to gossips to dictators.

> A legitimate reason to do this is for highway safety

This seems like first-order thinking. Sure, it makes people more likely to notice the motorcycles. But it also makes people a lot more likely to hate motorcyclists and be unsympathetic to their plight when considering legislation, court cases, their own behavior on the road, etc. I bet loud pipes have done much more harm than good to motorcyclists as a whole.

Cyclists in general get a bad rap. You can't tell me the baseball cards in my spokes are loud enough to warrant bottles being thrown, or remarks, but here we are.

Despite the two-wheel connection, I think the ire cyclists and motorcyclists get is actually completely unrelated. I have a lot of thoughts on why cyclists get so much mostly undeserved hate, but I don't think it's relevant to the discussion about motorcycles.

let's hear it

For cars, it mostly boils down to people's disgust at the mere thought of being even momentarily mildly inconvenienced by someone going slower than they want to go.

For pedestrians... Some people seem to feel threatened or indignant when they can detect that someone is going faster than them.

Anyone going slower than me is an idiot and anyone going faster is an asshole.

The discussion is dead anyway now, so sure. To make this fun for you, I've written two lists and mixed them together. I'll let you sort out the sometimes justified from the broadly unjustified . I believe cyclists are hated for the following reasons:

    Cyclists are physically fit.

    Cyclists like to run redlights.

    Cyclists are too poor to own cars.

    Cyclists are yuppies with expensive toys.

    Cyclists are drunks who lost their license.

    Cyclists use the road for leisure, holding up people trying to work.

    Cyclists ride on roads which are for cars.

    Cyclists ride on sidewalks which are for pedestrians.

    Cyclists lobby for bike lanes.

    Cyclists moralize at gas burners.

    Cyclists look dumb in spandex.

    Cyclists act like they never do anything wrong.

Reasons I don't believe belong in that list (I don't believe anybody really thinks these):

    Cyclists are too loud.

    Cyclists are bad because bicycles have two wheels.

I'm not into word games, I was just asking. I'll just let it go.

I'm slightly sympathetic to the road safety argument -- it's at least plausible [1] -- but it's weird how it only applies to motorcycles. Taking the logic seriously, everyone should make more noise for safety? Bicyclists are at least as vulnerable as motorcyclists, yet they're silent -- should they be blasting some sound, like a siren or whatever? And why stop there -- maybe all cars should make noise -- just honk their horns continuously for safety? It starts to get absurd.

[1] However, it seems it's not true: https://www.autoweek.com/news/industry-news/a35952569/loud-p...

The question is, why is the federal government allowing these vehicles to be sold / why are states allowing them to be registered?

If they don't meet federal standards, they're not legal to operate on US roads. They weren't even legal to import, which means they should be confiscated and destroyed.

Customs was fond of doing this for illegally imported Skylines and Land Rovers...why not brand new Porsches?

This may be a "lying with statistics" deal, I'm sure many of those vehicles are that loud only when you really open the throttle which would be really reckless in neighborhoods and city streets where this kind of thing matters the most. The quoted cars are only possible to enjoy to their full potential on a track unless you're driving like an extreme asshole.

I'm sure you can make a car that's quieter than these limits no matter how you drive them; they were designed to be loud because some people think it's cool.

EDIT: Not sure why this is getting downvoted. Look at the ad copy of some of these cars. https://www.ford.com/cars/mustang/ Literally the first line is "Hear the roar of a Mustang..."

These cars being /performance/ oriented might be a hint. For a car to go fast it needs air, like a lot of air, air that engine needs to dispose of quickly in order to get a fresh batch, and adding complex muffler systems limits how much airflow you can have.

Add to that ecological requirements and you have a very tight margin that car manufacturer can tweak in.

Also just because car can sound loud when driven in full throttle, doesn't mean it has to. It is on the driver if he chooses to be a nuisance, not manufacturer(Straight piping an old beater car is dirt cheap, having a hole in exhaust is even 'cheaper' and is much louder than any of the expensive, performance oriented cars in question.

Turbo makes a car faster and increases air intake -- yet make an engine quieter, not louder https://www.torque.com.sg/features/turbocharged-cars-why-qui...

This is true, but when we talk about performance oriented vehicles my initial point still stands. All turbo does is put more air into intake, that air still has to leave somehow.

Exhaust back-pressure is beneficial to a degree. You know not what you talk about.

Building cars is my hobby so I do know that it is more nuanced, but once again, this does not refute my initial point.

You do need some back-pressure to siphon back, but the amount is very limited, especially when we compare it to the sheer amount of air mass that those cars are moving.

Just so it doesn’t get lost — my point is, sports cars being loud when they’re full throttle is not a problem and never was, realistically you wouldn’t drive them that way outside of a racing track anyway. The fact that people still do it and annoy everyone else is a people problem, not a car problem.

> Based on Car and Driver testing, examples include the 2016 Porsche 911 GT3 RS (108 decibels) and the 2019 Chevrolet Corvette ZR1 and 2019 McLaren 720S Spider, both at 99 decibels.

At which speed and mode of operation? Is that during hard acceleration or during cruise? What range from the car?

That's most likely the peak, so whenever the car is going full throttle.

With the exception (arguably) of the vette, those are uncommon high end sportscars. Much like with the speed limit, the owners are expected to be a little more cognizant of law abiding.

I expect them to treat fines like fees.

Making fines matter to the people paying them is a separate problem. Finland scales then by your reported income for example.

Depending on where you go they can be very common. Drive around Beverly Hills or any of the nice parts of LA and you will see 911's and other high end cars more often than you would a Honda Civic.

>Seems crazy to me that manufacturers are selling cars that are basically designed to be a nuisance.

This is a really odd take.

The noise in that case is a by-product of how the car's powertrain is designed.

That doesn't really conflict with what GP said.

You're saying the mufflers are optimized to be as quiet as possible for the given powertrain?

Anyway, why the focus on the "powertrain"? I can understand wanting to accelerate quickly. Are you saying there's a relationship between acceleration and noise level? Clearly that's not true for electric cars, but is it even true for ICE cars? Turbo increases acceleration and yet lowers sound levels.

To be fair, if people drive them responsibly then they shouldn't be hitting that level on a 25-35 mph street. Or really anywhere other than an on ramp or highway passing, etc.

Also, I'm curious about the testing specs. I assume it has to be a specific pressure adjusted for things like altitude, temperature, and other environmental features. How do the cameras handle those variances so not to ticket someone with a legal car that goes over the limit due to an environmental factor?

> To be fair, if people drive them responsibly then they shouldn't be hitting that level on a 25-35 mph street. Or really anywhere other than an on ramp or highway passing, etc.

You can easily go full throttle in 1st or 2nd gear and make a ton of noise under 30MPH.

"You can easily go full throttle in 1st or 2nd gear"

And doing so would not be considered driving "responsibly". Hence my use of the word.

You can also drive irresponsibly and make a ton of noise in other cars by doing things like dumping the clutch.

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