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Comment by colechristensen | Hacker News Reader

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.

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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

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.

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.

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...

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