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Comment by baz00 | Hacker News Reader

Need them here in the UK. There are so many cars modified to have explosive sounding exhausts it's unreal. I get woken up regularly in the night when they drive them around at 2AM making a lot of noise. I still don't get why anyone would want to drive around sounding like that. There is no reason other than you want to look like a complete wanker and at that point society should crush your car to a fucking cube instantly.

Edit: turns out we do have them and they have been fining people. But it's mostly supercars. The problem is with shitty little cars with stupid exhausts which outnumber the supercars by at least two orders of magnitude.

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I still don't get why anyone would want to drive around sounding like that.

Evidence from game behavior suggests ~30% of people are willing to experience some cost to themselves in order to inflict a greater one on other people. People like this don't feel they are winning unless someone else is losing. If true, this explains a great deal.

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.1600451 - see figure 3 if you want to get right to it.

Outright malice probably only explains a small fraction of it. Partly it's just fun to make a lot of noise, and if you have little/no respect for other people then why not?

A less malicious part of it also arises from the fact that the cheaper the modification, the worse it sounds.

You can make a car sound excellent with no drone with a $5,000 factory quality upgrade... or you can pay some bozo $100 to cut out your muffler and weld in a straight line pipe.

That may not entitle them, but it represents how people might make this choice without intentionally being a nuance in mind

So don't make the modifications at all if it's going to make it a nuisance?

No no, cars and bikes leave the factory quiet. You have to expend time and money to Alex them noisy

That's not true, there are cars that can break noise regulations stock, even mass production models: https://www.thedrive.com/news/stock-hyundai-elantra-n-fails-...

The key difference is even loud factory exhaust setups leave room for relatively quiet operation depending on how you drive.

That Elantra driver was an idiot: he went in a town and drove in sport mode and drove in a way that forces extra loud pops

If he hadn't been forcing it the car was perfectly capable of not making excessive noise.

—

The $100 bozo special on the other hand has none of that: it's always loud and obnoxious.

In fact it gets more obnoxious at cruising RPM because of drone.

There are aftermarket exhausts that try to match the factory-style "not loud by default", but they're expensive because it takes careful engineering and integrating things like valves and Helmholtz resonators.

I have a 23 year old civic with little to no rust (yay California) except for a huge rust hole on the exhaust just before the muffler. So the modification is free!

I was looking into some kind of fix to wrap around the pipe but instead I had a very good deal on a 13 year old prius fall in my lap so now the civic is parked up while I decide what to do with it.

It's the same mentality at work in either case, just diffuse rather than targeted.

This is an extremely depressing statistic to read. I hope that it's something we can modify culturally rather than being a hard-wired part of our brains.

Troublingly, the study suggests otherwise, noting that consistent preferences seem to be established by age 6 (and citing some other research documenting as such). While it's not definitive or replicated, I do find the large n, multinational sampling, and experimental elegance of this own persuasive; it's had a significant effect on my worldview.

That is a good study, and it does explain one of the behaviors.

But do not discount the importance of powerlessness in these behaviors. People who have relatively less power in their work, their surroundings, their relationships, there ability to influence their own econonmic situation, etc, still need a way to express power. It is easy to couch it merely in terms of winning/losing in the moment, but without context it is hard to see what the right solution is.

If it is merely winning/losing/greater cost, with no particular motivation, then banning any particular annoying activity is as good a regulation as any other.

But when you take away a dimension of power over an area that a person strongly associates with "basic freedoms" such as owning a camaro/civic/harley/gixxer and tuning it to their liking, including making it incredibly and illegally loud, you are making a more fundamental policy decision than you might realize.

My take is that these make for bad county/state/federal laws. They are fine for city laws that are associated with modest fines, because that is the kind of law that continues to enable some expression of control and personal power-- an important part of dignity.

They annoy me. The people and their exhausts branded "Neighbor Haters." But so do the pedestrians who choose to enter the intersection when the red hand is up and the countdown timer is at 3 seconds, and they feign feebleness in order to take nearly a minute to cross the street while 500 people in gridlock wait in all directions. But I see it for what it is and choose to respect their dignity, probably when they need it most.

applying game theory to these kinds of social situation are really not all that interesting or really reusable in a real-world setting.

"In a perfectly predictable and rational world filled with rational actors, here is what would happen!".

Except people aren't rational actors, they don't have all information available to them, and there aren't any "rules of the game" in real life.

This does not explain it, qnd trying to do so through biology is the wrong angle.

This issue is purely a cultural one, not a biological one, but this is not popular to investigate because 1. it's considered impossible to solve and 2. brings up difficult questions regarding cultural relativity that aren't appreciated in the modern academic Anglosphere.

I'm continuously surprised that even on HN this comes up so often. A phenomenon is presented which is orders of magnitude more common in one culture than another, yet what is reached for is a biological, tech, or otherwise "hard science" explanation.

In this case, the phenomenon is one of publically inflicting harm on others at a cost and no gain to themselves.

I guess it has to do with the community (understandably!) having a strong tendency to approach everything from a STEM PoV when it comes to all but a small number of (mostly US-specific, policy or economic) topics.

Just to prevent misunderstandings here, culture here doesn't mean the culture of a nation but of (much smaller) communities, in 2023.

Motorcycles too. Around here idiots revving and redlining their engine is a relatively regular occurrence. Much more so than cars, although that also happens from time to time.

I live in a motorcycle-heavy US town (blue collar, lots of guys who wish they were 1%ers - the biker outlaw variety, not the rich people variety). It sounds like a warzone during shift change around the industrial districts.

Having been neighbors with a lot of these guys, it has been repeatedly explained to me that theh make their bikes louder to be heard for safety. The assumption here is car drivers are so engaged with their music/podcasts/whatever turned up that they don't pay attention to the traffic around them. They also tend to not look when switching lanes or, gods forbid, use their turn signal to show intent.

While this sounds like a reasonable argument, I think it's a load of bullpucky. Motorcycles are loud by default, and using aftermarket parts to make them louder is just part of the self-affirming statement of ego. These guys need you to know how big and bad they believe themselves to be that they'll make other sacrifices in their lives to afford projecting that image.

It's really all very silly, to be honest.

As a motorcyclist, if I had a penny for every time I've heard the "loud pipes save lives" mantra, I'd be a millionaire.

It always felt like "a load of bullpucky", but the defining moment for me was one day riding down a quietish-street with a legal-but-still-obnoxious Akrapovic pipe. In front of me were two or three girls walking in the middle of the road, talking. They only realized I was there when I sounded the horn and seemed really surprised, judging by their jumpiness.

If someone walking in front of the bike can't hear that noise, I really don't see how someone inside a sound-insulated box, in a generally noisy environment, probably blasting the radio, is going to notice the loud pipe.

Have you considered maybe you're in the wrong? The hierarchy of responsibility puts a motorbike above (more responsible) than a pedestrian. Three people is more than one, so you are really saying you inconvenienced three more vulnerable people just so you, a single person, could go down a road, at speed, without a care for others.

That why I always drive on the sidewalk. It’s the courteous thing to do.

I wasn't racing down the street, if that's what you're saying. And, at least in these parts, pedestrians aren't supposed to walk in the middle of the street if there are sidewalks available (outside certain designated areas, of which this street was not one).

Many a street has been converted to such an area. But rules apply to everybody, and sometimes even an obnoxious biker can actually be in the right.

That's why I wear a car alarm strapped to my head, always going off, when I walk down the street.

At the low frequencies that tend to dominate and at that volume, it's relatively difficult to figure out where the source of the sound actually is, especially with buildings around that reflect sound every which way

It was a one-way street, so it was pretty clear where the traffic was coming from.

I do not think that matters much.

I don’t think your brain learned about one way streets and started fully trusting drivers to follow the law, certainly not the low-level parts that govern the “there’s something there you may need to pay attention to” mechanism.

What do you mean?

I usually am aware that I'm in the middle of the street when I'm not supposed to be there (think when there's something blocking the sidewalk or similar). In this case, I'll absolutely pay a lot of attention to my surroundings. Hell, even when I cross the street at a green light, I'll look before I step off the sidewalk.

Because in my mental model of traffic, drivers are very likely to not follow the law.

I may very well be in the right and the guy running me over may very well be certain to get convicted, but what good does that do to me if my legs are broken or worse?

I think it's the same thing with the new electric cars, which have to make a noise because people can't hear them coming otherwise. This, to me, means that pedestrians are expected to pay at least some attention to their surroundings. Which, of course, doesn't mean you should run them over or otherwise put them at risk if they're careless.

But my overarching point is that enough people don't pay attention even when they are expected to, and no amount of noise is going to change that.

> Because in my mental model of traffic, drivers are very likely to not follow the law.

You are actually agreeing with your parent poster here. What you said is exactly why people look both ways even on a one-way street.

I think the point, consistent with the original story, is that most people don't look either way when crossing the street.

Behold, the dialectic of the material conception of the human mind. In my mind it bears an uncanny resemblance to the liquid humours posited by our forefathers, no?

Deaf people exist. And there are going to be people in the middle of the road from time to time; it happens. And sometimes people make mistakes. I’ve even seen people not realize that a street was one way. And sound reflects and bounces, and vehicles are capable of moving at different speeds; they’re even capable of moving the wrong way or on adjacent roads or on cross roads or on fields, making the determination of location not always straightforward. And any factors that did or did not apply in your story may apply in others. Just all the more reason for drivers to be careful.

> It was a one-way street

I don't think pedestrians are generally aware if a street is one-way or not.

Or if they were like me, they were trying to ignore the loud sound damaging their ears that 99.999% is a vehicle nowhere near them.

Or they were just blocking your way.

Whenever I hear a douche nozzle with an extremely loud exhaust, I start crossing / walking obnoxiously slow. Two can play the game.

It was a legal, unmodified exhaust. It was loud, but not "extremely" so. Also, they were not crossing, they were walking down the middle of the street. You know, where cars are supposed to go. People walk on sidewalks.

This was a Paris street, with two large sidewalks on either side of a narrowish one-way street. It's not like they had no other practical choice.

"Legal" is an arbitrary metric likely formulated in concert with the car/bike manufacturers via corrup... excuse me, via lobbying, so you should really know better than to use that term as a shield.

Do you not agree that noise pollution is a real problem that has grown to unacceptable levels?

Expect even more civil disobedience -- I've observed the same as you in my city, people started doing it on purpose to sabotage cars and bikes taking way too much space on iconic scenic streets.

I do agree. It's one of the reasons why I've sold that bike several years ago.

But I very much doubt this was done on purpose. This was not an "iconic" street by any means, just a random street of no particular interest, with close to no traffic, pedestrian or vehicle. Such "iconic" streets do exist, and they usually have specific road rules where people are allowed to walk in the middle of street and cars are expected to avoid them (the streets) as much as possible. This was no such street.

Plus, they were already walking down the middle of the road much before I was close to them. I've also seen other people do the same even with no vehicle in sight, in this or other similar streets. This is also a problem for bicycles, which also have to ride in the street and aren't exactly a source of annoying noise.

They were in Paris! This changes everything. Of course they were walking in the middle of the street.

Plus, Paris or not, with no setback for the buildings nobody wants to risk getting leftover washing liquid poured on them from a window.

> Plus, Paris or not, with no setback for the buildings nobody wants to risk getting leftover washing liquid poured on them from a window.

Wtf, this is not backwater Russia we're talking about (aka the places where the Russian units originated that were caught looting washing machines). I've never seen someone be as intentionally rude as to dump out water from a window.

I sort of see it all the time in Paris. I almost got dumped on a couple of weeks ago when walking my children. If we had been five seconds earlier, we would have been soaked.

(I say "sort of" because I assume it's generally people watering plants, but the amount of water coming down seems excessive.)

But surely you are aware that Paris has many visitors.

And that a good portion of them may be paranoid about this type of thing due to their very real experiences elsewhere.

Exactly. As far as I've been able to tell, mere noise will do absolutely nothing to get most drivers' attention. I've seen drivers fail to notice a police car or other emergency vehicle behind them, siren and lights both on, as they stare fixedly at the phone in their lap. Even in less extreme cases, most drivers will just treat loud motorcycle noise as part of the general din of being in a place where they exist. It won't generally have any effect at all on their decisions to speed up, slow down, or change lanes. Fun fact: the more common a noise is, the less likely it becomes that it will have any effect at all on people's behavior.

Most people are either blissfully unaware of their surroundings regardless of the noises or they just tuned out said noises because there are so many of them.

This is not an argument for noisier exhausts. It's an argument to reduce noise in general, from all sources. Then people will react better to the louder noises.

Agreed, ban headphones while walking down the street!

Please turn your vehicle in to the authorities to be cubed immediately.

Yeah that is dumb, I agree. It's asking to be hit on the roads.

I know you're being facetious and it would obviously be silly to ban them. That said wearing headphones/earphones while walking around a city, for me, would reduce my situational awareness to a degree I would absolutely not be comfortable with. I know plenty of people are comfortable doing so but, while drivers and road design almost certainly bear the lion's share of the blame for pedestrian injuries and fatalities, distracted pedestrians don't help themselves. (Just the other week, I saw a person come super-close to getting hit in a parking lot as they were obliviously walking across the traffic lane buried deep in their phone.)

I once saw a pedestrian step out in front a speeding police car with lights and siren . . . I guess because the walk light turned green? The police car had to slam on its brakes and honk before the idiot noticed it.

> Most people are either blissfully unaware of their surroundings

Maybe it’s my morbid search history, but I still look on in awe as people cross the intersection in front of me while deep on their phones. They don’t look up to check at all - not even at the start!

Yeah same, it boggles my mind. I'm scared for my life of busy intersections, many drivers get impatient to the point of seemingly not caring if they'll kill you. I never ever look at my phone while on the move.

It's an absolutely delusional argument imo. I think SciShow did an episode on it, but drivers can not hear motorcycles until they're right next to them, and I believe it has to do with how sound travels.

I've noticed the same on my motorcycle. The pipe points out the back.

If the only way for a vehicle to be operated safely is for it to be incredibly loud, then how about we ban them from urban areas or perhaps in general?

Doing dangerous stuff is cool. All the coolest bikers stealth their bikes. Put on extra silent exhausts. Dress in all black. Dim their lights. Hide in the blind spots of other cars.

Hire some people to put that on TikTok, and it's problem solved.

Ban cars because loud noises are required to make them not kill people? Good idea.

They are banned in many major European and Asian cities for a good reason

Even louder pipes with high frequency noise should help with directionality /s

My bike came with a Yoshimura and it is deafening to me even on a 372cc. I had to buy a baffle for it and wear earplugs. My watch warns me it’s still 90 to 100 dB.

I guess it kinda sounds cool for about a minute before being unhealthy. It was a surprise to me that anyone want such a thing when I first started out.

I still think it's "bullpucky" and two or three clueless pedestrians don't demonstrate anything.

When living in a neighborhood where almost all of the houses were old and poorly insulated, the motorcycles which went up and down our street were loud enough that indoors, with the windows closed, we would have to stop conversations, pause tv shows, etc, and wait for them to pass, because one simply couldn't hear anything over them. This is a densely populated neighborhood; 4-8 apartments per building tens of buildings per side per block, so interrupting hundreds of people per block, and many thousands in the course of a ride seems a reasonable estimate. The motorcyclists would joyride in loops, so you would hear them multiple times, being disrupted each time. I think for this reason the disruption caused per ride is comparable to a streaker on the field of a major sports event that forces game play to be paused. For someone who disrupts whole neighborhoods in this way, on regular basis, to say it's "for safety" seems like a narcissistic delusion. If I drive a car on the highway, and there are large trucks with big blindspots and drivers who I know are struggling after having been at it for 12h, should I have a siren to make sure they know I'm there?

I must hasten to add that cyclists and pedestrians also have to deal with drivers in massive metal deathboxes, and we do it without disrupting the whole world around us.

People are conditioned to ignore the droning sound of exhaust. It's ubiquitous and also not very directional. Horns, on the other hand, usually work to get peoples attention.

The sound on those bikes are directed almost entirely backwards. Which is why you can hear a Harley that blows by you until they get 2 miles ahead, but that same bike is essentially silent while it’s closing on you from behind. It’s a stupid argument.

Pipes point backwards. They still don't make enough noise to be heard from in front. That's why loud bikes always scare people, you don't hear them coming until they are next to you and blasting past you. It's silence and then deafening roar.

Loud pipes save lives is bullshit. Defensive riding, good safety gear, and staying out of blind spots saves lives.

> While this sounds like a reasonable argument, I think it's a load of bullpucky.

I'd think it's an outright self-defeating lie: they're so noisy you will hear them all over with no ability to see them (and most of the time they're irrelevant to you), so you just get listening fatigue, and you stop caring aside from being annoyed by the constant noise. And that's just as a driver, as a nearby resident it's infuriating.

Motorcycles aren't loud by default. My BMW k75 is basically quiet even when you rev it. Turns out mufflers work.

I don't buy it, and I'm both a motorcycle rider and a driver.

Some people like loud exhaust, period. It's a cool sound. It makes you feel powerful. Safety aspect is a rationalization for others and possibly yourself. In busy traffic, to another moving vehicle, sound is neither going to be heard clearly nor will it provide directional or distance cues. If they're interested in safety (or would like to think they are), ask them about their full face helmet, which motorcycle course they're thinking of taking next, and what's their training routine in the spring. Maybe whether they're considering a high visibility outfit instead of black leather.

> It makes you feel powerful.

That is all it is. It lets you impose yourself on others without sufficient probability of retribution.

> While this sounds like a reasonable argument, I think it's a load of bullpucky

And you would be correct:

https://www.motorbiscuit.com/new-study-confirms-loud-pipes-s...

> Having been neighbors with a lot of these guys, it has been repeatedly explained to me that theh make their bikes louder to be heard for safety.

Very popular line of thinking with people who own (e.g.) Harley-Davidsons… which are loud out of the box. Go over to (say) /r/motorcycles where there's a larger variety of ownership, and not many folks really buy it.

The High Side, Low Side motorcycle podcast had an episode on moto-myths where they went over this:

* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1UlW-sfbBA&t=21m47

The MCRider moto-training channel covered it:

* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F02_9V7OKjw

Very popular line of thinking with people who own (e.g.) Harley-Davidsons… which are loud out of the box.

No they are not, at least not in the U. S. Thé EPA dictates a max dB sound output, and HDs must meet it, like everyone else. Stock HDs sound quite nice.

Of course, you might not know this because no real American leaves a HD dealer with the stock exhaust installed.

The aftermarket for noise scofflaws should not exist. I lived near some kind of chopper club years ago and every Sunday around 10am you'd have these clowns revving loud enough to nearly make eardrums bleed. I theorize the reason they feel comfortable inflicting this on others is because they have the admiration and encouragement of the individuals on the police force who would do the same with their cruisers if the city would buy the parts. Pox on all of them in this narrow regard.

I was banned from /r/motorcycles for commenting on a handlebar camera video where a guy was racing down a winding, limited visibility road with his buddies and lost control trying to avoid hitting a cyclist who was crossing in a crosswalk, complete with blinking warning lights.

Every comment was "fuck that cyclist, they rode out in front of you!"

Apparently calculating from the video that they were doing 15+ mph over the speed limit, and proving from the video and math that the cyclist could not see him before they'd started into the crosswalk...was ban-worthy.

The guy even blurred out his speedometer to hide that he was speeding.

His comment/post history showed that the motorcycle, which was a very powerful model, was his first bike and he'd very recently bought it. He posted "new motorcycle day" pictures.

The guy was a textbook squid: recently acquired first bike was too powerful for him, no brains/skills, riding dangerously, putting himself and others at risk.

Pointed that out to the mods and was told I was being reported for "doxxing." For clicking on "posts" on his profile and seeing he'd recently posted a picture of the bike.

Fuck that subreddit and its mods.

This kinda nails an issue with reddit. You can find a hobby/community that you have overlapping interest in, but the culture/moderation of that community may not have any consistency with what you want. Which would be fine, but reddit doesn't provide room/discoverability for multiple subreddits of the same topic with different moderation styles/cultures.

If this was recent, much of the subreddit's mod team left a few months ago. The new management is far less active in moderation.

Not to mention, the noise from pipes emanates backwards, toward cars that have the motorcycle in their field of vision. Even the loudest bikes I don't really hear until they pass me.

"Silly" is really underselling it.

One biker jumped to fight me once after I joked with him that he uses loud exhaust pipes to get a prostate massage while riding. People around him stopped him. I laughed my arse off. Apparently I hit a nerve.

But yeah, that's how much respect I have for these people. Whatever reasons they invent the fact of the matter is that noise pollution is already too much and everyone should be working on reducing it. Everyone. No exceptions. Including mothers with rattling strollers; having one with rubber wheels is not gonna bankrupt her family, I am pretty sure.

Yeah, when are the cops finally gonna crack on noisy mothers, not to mention their screechy children?!?

I'm trying to drive over here.

You’re being an oaf about the strollers, the noise isn’t anywhere near as loud as for motorcycles (bizarre to compare them) and if you had kids you’d know the inflatable tires only work on large jogger or double wide strollers (and about those you’d be complaining how much space the pay take up on the sidewalk, in the grocery store, in the subway etc and if someone needs to ride the bus or a taxi they are not even an option). Typical complaining from a self centered non parent.

No need for jumping to conclusions. I sympathize with parents' problems and I prefer the bigger strollers because they don't rattle. Whether they belong to public spaces is something people can't agree on but I'm not seeing riots over it.

Me and others are inclined towards solutions that reduce noise.

While this sounds like a reasonable argument…

It’s not, otherwise they’d get a discount on insurance…which they don’t. And it’s bullshit for a lot of reasons, including good ol’ physics.

That’s the first I’ve heard of the insurance argument, and I think you’re right. If loud pipes saved lives, Progressive Flo would’ve mentioned their noise discounts.

Actuaries can tell us the exact relation between volume and deaths per mile, I bet, and it must be nearly zero.

Can't wait for all cars to have proximity sensors/cameras alerting us drivers to what's around us.

Loud bikes slightly disorient me when I'm driving my car. If anything, I'm more likely to have an accident when they drive up near me

While I am annoyed by loud motorcycles, I understand and totally agree with riders about being loud so cars are aware. Drivers are shockingly unaware of their surroundings. It's worse with drivers of larger trucks and SUVs. Drivers don't address their blind spots, they don't pay attention, they don't signal, they don't look. I've fortunately never seen a motorcyclist hit by a car, but I've seen a lot of close calls, and not one of them has been saved because the driver suddenly noticed the bike.

I'm sure there are guys who want to be loud, just like the kids who put the noisy mufflers on their cars. For most bikers I don't think they see a better alternative.

There's a problem in that the danger is in front but the exhaust noise goes out the back. I was once driving cross crunchy in a big truck with a trailer when I was startled by a loud motorcycle coming up beside me. He had been in danger the entire time he was next to me but I never heard him until he got right next to the cab. They should really point the loud exhaust forward but who wants to live with that noise?

>While this sounds like a reasonable argument, I think it's a load of bullpucky. Motorcycles are loud by default, and using aftermarket parts to make them louder is just part of the self-affirming statement of ego. These guys need you to know how big and bad they believe themselves to be that they'll make other sacrifices in their lives to afford projecting that image.

It basically is. Most bike horns are going to be louder then stock or aftermarket exhausts, yet no one's gone around tapping the horn button down.

> it has been repeatedly explained to me that theh make their bikes louder to be heard for safety

I always found that argument to be a bit of a red herring.

_Even if_ that was true and _even if_ the only way to safely ride a motorcycle was by disturbing every single person you pass by on the street, that still doesn't justify people riding loud bikes.

At that point, you are making a deliberate, selfish choice that your enjoyment of riding a bike is more important than other people's comfort.

It's like someone bringing smelly food on a plane and saying they're justified because it's the only way they can eat their favourite dish. We don't go "oh, they're right, the smell is necessary for them to enjoy their food." We go "just eat something else, you're being selfish".

Oh! They need to be heard to be able to be going between traffic and passing vehicles closely.

Underpowered scooters/mopeds can also be a huge problem (near me this is the main noise problem at night - usually food delivery drivers) - they get very noisy when they go a bit faster in a way more powerful motorbikes don't.

Around here it's definitely motorcycles, they have a completely different sound than delivery mopeds (which are almost nonexistent nearby), and they're speeding on the road just over.

And that lovely two-stroke smoke! Yummy!

Scooters are often 2-stroke. They have centrifugal clutches so they need to be revved high to engage and accelerate. They are also cheap and a large portion seem to have failed mufflers. These three things make them particularly annoying even if they aren't the loudest things on the road.

And they stink, which is even worse than the noise. Ever since my nose worked again after covid, I've gotten intensely sensitive to diesel, gas and two-stroke smoke - even a whiff is enough to send me into serious headaches.

I’m tired of the “loud pipes save lives” nonsense.

If something can’t be safe for the operator without being a nuisance to thousands of people along their route, then it shouldn’t be on the road.

Bring on the fines for loud motorcycles. It’s ridiculous that we let this problem proliferate.

At moderate to high speeds you can’t even hear bikes until they’re beside or in front of you anyway. Loud pipes just fuel anti-motorcycle sentiment. As a motorcyclist it’s frustrating to see people vote for rules and regulations that limit motorcycle modification, but I understand why they do it.

Some idiots on motorcycles blast music at 120dB in addition to engine noise. Back when I lived some thirty yards from a fairly busy street, I couldn’t hear any car traffic, but these motorcycles announced their arrival from a mile away.

Live near a 'late shop' where teens 'hang out', and most of the time the wankers revving their bikes here are doing it to impress teenage girls, sadly being able to overhear them occasionally, it seems to work.

One particular bike owner literally just rides around in a rectangular pattern most evenings, over and over, revving only when he gets the junction in front of where the teens hang out - yes, I can hear his bike on all 4 sides of the pattern.

However, the most annoying motorist we get, is a middle aged woman who owns a white audi and sits arming/disarming and triggering her alarm whenever she sends her husband/partner into the shop, she performs this ritual 2-3 times a day usually. Very annoying hearing 'bip.... bip bip bip... bip. wuuuuwuuuuwuuu bip, bip bip bip...' and so on.

I regularly lie awake as some idiot is racing round residential London streets in the distance, in densely populated areas it must be in the thousands of people that are being disrupted by a single person.

thousands of people that are being disrupted by a single person

We are in a very weird place as a culture where this isn’t necessarily considered a slam dunk to come down super hard on whatever it is. The pendulum has swung way too far, we need to move back in the direction of protecting the community.

When I moved to London from Central Europe, I was surprised how many people drive with loud exhausts in residential areas. It was especially annoying during the night, when every fifteen minutes some idiot would drive down the nearby 2-lane road (Aerodrome Rd, Colindale) at full throttle.

Same here where I am in the UK. It seems to be getting worse over time too.

It’s actually ridiculous the level of noise some people drive around making. People buy “pop and bang” ECU tunes that when combined with a aftermarket exhaust make their car sound like a howitzer. I live on a main road, and there are some cars driving around at night that I can hear half a mile away or more. The cops or council should seize the cars and the owners should have to pay to have the mods undone before they can get them returned.

The other thing I don’t understand is how in the UK these people are passing MOTs. Either they are colluding with a garage to get fake passes, or they are on fake plates, or they’re undoing the mod every year when they need to go get an MOT.

Don't force them to fix them. Just crush them with zero warning. Word gets around quickly.

I'm in favour of banning all modifications to vehicles as well. Seen several cars with turned in wheels and appendages which are clearly affecting traction and aerodynamics.

> turned in wheels and appendages

Some of these mods also affect odometer readings.

Years ago a friend dropped his car off for three hours to get an MOT. When he received the certificate it had apparently been issued by a garage hundreds of miles away so it was plainly bogus. He reported it to the police. They did not give two fucks. I would be surprised if these modders have any trouble getting an MOT.

They have more an issue if they ever try and claim something on their insurance. Insurance companies are definitely motivated to find reasons not to pay out, and undeclared modifications are a pretty easy way to void your insurance.

Forget tunes, manufacturers are sending the things out of the factory with "pop and bang" settings. It needs to be outlawed. It's getting worse and worse. Presumably MOT doesn't cover it if they are getting set this way by default.

Noise pollution in general is getting really bad and I think manufacturers need to be held accountable for this. My neighbour has recently installed some kind of "smart door bell". When the postie, or whoever, rings this, it makes a chime on the outside of the house. So the whole street knows when that doorbell is pressed. Why in the ever-loving fuck does it even have a speaker on the outside of the house?!

I'd be at that with a hammer in 30 nanoseconds.

sure you would, tough guy

We already have them in some areas (along with PSPOs which create the legal basis to fine for excessive noise). I think Knighsbridge was the first but believe they now also have them on Brompton Road and a few others - see here https://www.mylondon.news/news/west-london-news/london-counc...

I never understood the desire to be loud. My EV is probably faster than most of the cars on the road screaming at the top of their lungs and showing off their engines and it's whisper quiet. I like it that way.

I don't think it is about the speed. My combine tops out at 18MPH, but there is something about the sound its engine makes when it is revved up – and when you throw the hydro level forward, oh boy.

I also enjoy concerts, though. Understandably music isn't for everyone.

I am the guy who wears Bose noise cancelling headphones at work or on the plane with nothing playing :)

Prior to the current generation of very fast EVs, having a louder vehicle was a way to indicate more power. A more powerful (internal combustion) engine implies more noise. Of course the reverse doesn't apply, more noise doesn't strictly imply more power - it can just be an exhaust with lousy noise suppression. ALSO you might eke a little more power from an engine with less back pressure from the exhaust, so there is some real effect available.

So if you've got some modified monster with an insane engine, it's going to be loud. And if you're a wannabe with a superficially-modified, underpowered car, you can add more noise easier than you can add more power, and hope to fool people. It's not very laudable, but you can see how it could motivate the ego of the inconsiderate.

Sure, and I get that I suppose. Driving fast ICE cars is a fun but different experience. What kills me are Honda civics with "performance" mufflers that muffle.. less.

Blame Jeremy Clarkson and the car culture he fostered. For decades, new and old cars were judged by their ability to spin their wheels around a test track, and by the loudness of their exhaust heard inside a tunnel.

Blaming Clarkson for loud cars is like blaming videogames for mass shootings. Car yobs, and the tuning culture, existed way before Top Gear became popular entertainment, but is nearly as old as the invention of the automobile.

Also, here's some AI generated Top Gear to give you nightmares: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QYWCIJgw610

I’d blame the people doing that, not the one who makes a show, it is not because I like cars and like to run them on tracks I am responsible for those who drive modified cars in urban areas

Monkey see Monkey do though

The problem is monkeys

There’s a marked difference between a performance car with an aggressive exhaust under wide open throttle and a modified economy car with a stupid loud exhaust under normal driving.

Even the super cars have to obey noise regulations. The modified cars can be 10-20dB louder, which is a lot.

I'm a Brit (living in Germany) and I think it's much more related to our hatred of rule-following, combined with austerity. I am still surprised at how rebellious people are in the UK. During COVID, I barely saw any police confront those who weren't wearing masks. When I moved to Hamburg, the transport security would stand at the stations and if they saw someone asleep on the S-Bahn with their mask falling off they would go on the train and berate them. One funny thing was getting the S-Bahn from the airport, all the Brits would not be wearing masks even though you were required to by law. They would keep it up for about 3 stops before getting scared at all the staring and putting their masks on. Frankly, it's just a very different world. In the UK, it genuinely seems like the police are often too scared to confront anti-social behaviour. This is not so in mainland Europe

On the other hand, when I leave London to visit Vienna or Berlin or Frankfurt and I see a dozen Germanophones standing motionless at a crossing with a red light for pedestrians, but there is not a single car in sight, I think what on earth is wrong with these lemmings, do they have no brain of their own?

There's a balance to be had, and I would suggest neither Germany nor Austria nor the UK has it right.

This one gets me as my partner is German. She gets annoyed when I walk when there's a red crossing light. There's no damn cars ffs, just go.

> but there is not a single car in sight, I think what on earth is wrong with these lemmings, do they have no brain of their own?

We have more than enough bored cops that love to annoy people both on feet and on bike with red-light tickets in quiet areas. For pedestrians it's just annoying with a 5€ "fine", but for bicyclists or e-scooter drivers it means a strike in your driver's license.

When people behave in a way you expect it creates a more harmonious society

> This is not so in mainland Europe

I see you haven't visited the Netherlands, where what you're describing is even worse than the UK.

I always see red lights as a bet, you raise the rest of your life time, to win a couple of minutes, to me always seemed like an easy decision to make

Oh come on. He’s a terrible person, loud cars are a freaking nuisance, but to claim that he’s the reason everyone from Thai teenagers to Georgian gangsters to Emirati chammaks[0] is removing their muffler because of him is bizarrely and myopically Anglocentric.

0: choosing countries I’m familiar with

Part of it is the prevalence of "pop and bang" maps, modified ECU configuration which changes timing and allows unburnt fuel to enter the hot exhaust and explode.

There is a purpose to this in turbocharged cars in motor racing - anti-lag - as the extra gases keep the turbo spinning during gear changes. No reason for it on public roads though.

There's also a lot of "cat deletes" (removal of catalytic converters to improve exhaust gas flow and increase engine power). Illegal, but very common to see on YouTube and just like pretty much anything else illegal on the roads in the UK these days, the police don't seem to care at all.

> There are so many cars modified to have explosive sounding exhausts it's unreal

> There is no reason other than you want to look like a complete wanker

In case anyone doesn’t know, the pop sound can serve a real purpose. The sound comes from extra fuel being ignited in the exhaust, which is done to keep the turbo spinning when you let off the gas. It helps minimize turbo lag. It also occurs in older race cars that had carburetors because they had less precise control over fuel injection compared to modern cars.

That said, some people tune their car to imitate that sound with no purpose just cause they think it sounds cool. They waste extra fuel just to sound like that.

There’s also the pop on gear shifts, due to killing the spark on gear shifts for a faster shift. The alternative is that awful dreadful rev-hang in standard transmission cars.

same here by me in a random part of the US. My house sits on a street that is not incorporated by the local city so the sheriff has jurisdiction over it and won't bother to send a squad car to watch for speeding. It's a residential street that is very straight for the area and easy to see on. The speed limit is 35 mph but I have clocked people going 80 mph past my house. I think people know it for being a good road to speed on. One car used both lanes to do a speed test and the marks are still on the street, smoke all over my yard from that one.

I noticed it increased after 2020. My theory was here at least that people got accustomed to speeding from the empty roads and lower enforcement but I think the extremely low interest rates let people get into the car market and a lot of people bought obnoxious cars and modded them. Some people must like that noise. I think it's a signal of how their car is fast and they are willing to flaunt rules.

these people desperately want attention

So give it to them, via enforcement.

My old high school friends put noisy exhaust systems on because the unrestricted systems promised to increase the hp of their 100hp honda civics by 5-10hp. BMW actually used to play fake engine noises through the speakers bc they were afraid the cars had become to quiet. Harley Davidsons whole reason for existence is to be noisy. Wankers everywhere.

Ladies and gentlemen, be prepare for more car exhausts noises in the streets with the upcoming Gran Turismo movie..

Those pops are “features” in some stock unmodified cars too. So unnecessary.

Same problem in the US. 16year olds think the only way to be cool is to attach a stupid rattler to your exhaust, or cut a hole to make it louder, or intentionally make it backfire.

The reason is simple: the car owners adored the Fast N Furious series

The high rate of catalytic converter theft might explain why some people sound like they're driving an aircraft carrier down your street.

Did something change with regard to the value of a catalytic converter in the last ten years? Has the recycling market become more open than it used to be?

Massive spikes in platinum, palladium, and rhodium prices and the availability reciprocating saws.

Aircraft carriers are nuclear though. That’s a bit quieter than a modified civic

If they can't make anything else, they make noise.

Also motorcycles.

How anyone can be comfortable annoying more people per hour than they'll meet in their entire life I'll never understand.

Also people who throw litter out of their car windows. The Venn diagram of the two groups is likely nearly a circle.

To some, a loud exhaust almost amounts to a mating call.

Get better windows? I live across from a major road and I can't hear anything since replacing the old single panes from the 70's.

You can give your windows an airtight seal but what about ventilation in your bedroom?

Fart fan, point the outlet towards the back yard. Bathroom is quiet for me. Never open the window.

I want to open my window. We don't have air con over here.

As far as tasks go making the world quiet is probably more difficult than adapting your home to be a more sound proof and climate controlled.

My advice here is the only one actually guaranteed to improve the problem. It also costs less than bribing politicians to passing a law for you or inventing bespoke technology and deploying it to the sides of every road.

> As far as tasks go making the world quiet is probably more difficult than adapting your home to be a more sound proof and climate controlled.

I mean, probably not, since other countries have greatly reduced the problem without much issue.

> My advice here is the only one actually guaranteed to improve the problem. It also costs less than bribing politicians to passing a law for you or inventing bespoke technology and deploying it to the sides of every road.

No one is denying the existence of bandaids solutions, but that doesn't mean we should stop at bandaid solutions. Frankly this sounds like libertarian ideology. We don't just let people do bad things because we can choose to insulate ourselves in a fortress, instead we focus on fixing society first and plan to one day remove the bandaid.

Well enjoy the noise and the heatwaves until the government gets around to resolving the problem for you.

The government is us.

Again, way too libertarian for me. I think we should work to improve society, but that's just me

> My advice here

I would assume that most people here do understand that they can close their windows.

most people here hopefully also understood that the point was getting better windows, not closing them

Doesn't always work when the car is modified to make as much noise as possible. There's one near us that speeds up and down but the exhaust sounds like a gun being fired. Seriously loud and obnoxious.a

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