Do loud pipes save lives? (2021)
autoweek.com
autoweek.com
I’m glad to see the data to back that up. Maybe now my fellow riders can agree that their motorbikes are a bit too damn loud, and tone it down.
It would be awesome if the rest of us didn't have to rely on the possible good sense of a motorcyclist and, instead, noise pollution laws were strictly enforced. I highly doubt any Harley out there is even capable of operating below the legal limit in CA of 80dbA.
All Harleys that are sold comply with the legal limit. It's the owners that put on third-party exhausts that cause the noise.
High viz vests CAN be beneficial. Don’t rely on them.
Not really? Most folks in, e.g., /r/motorcycles think it is a bunk claim.
The stereotype is that it is mostly Harley riders who say it.
Frankly, I don't understand how it is that there are so many obnoxiously loud bikes on the road. I've always assumed that it has nothing to do with safety and is more a reflection of the (deliberately) inconsiderate nature of some people.
https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/2024/02/15/m...
Lower centre of gravity, some "extra" leg protection in sideswipes | converging hits on roundabouts (from the pots and pot crash bar protectors), and zero chance of chain wear with better direct power pickup | engine braking from the shaft.
These are all grounds for some heated debate wherever two wheels gather, but I'll swear by them.
Worse perhaps are all types of proximity sensors, because you can only trust them when they go off, and even then not always. Most cars get dirt on them, snow on them, rain on them and that tends to mess with proximity sensing enough to either disable the sensors or cause them to go off randomly. I don't think anyone has ever yet trusted the blind spot sensors on their mirrors to do a lane change, only aborted one because of them. Such non-camera sensors would fix almost nothing because at best they would sometimes cause people to reconsider swerving into a motorcyclist, and even then they usually go off way too late to prevent misfires while driving normally.
These are great features when they work but overengineering around fundamental design problems seems to me to only put people too much at ease in their cars and make bad driver behaviour worse, because why spin your head around to check when you can just not do that and stare at the little screen or trust your array of easily fooled sensors to do safety in your place. I think solutions like finding alternative pillar configurations, creating long or short enough front side windows for you to see back, harsher driver's license testing with longer required study periods and in cases where you can't do anything else such as some pickups just doing what semis do and having several well-aligned mirrors instead of one set of nice-looking ones would be a lot safer in the end.
As well as getting people who can't drive for shit off the road. That's sort of included in driver's license requirements but there's surely some other methods for it that I have not mentioned.
An I say "reasonable" intentionally vague because there are degrees of car dependency that varies between regions. On average, I believe Europe might be closer to banning private cars. USA I would bet not so much.
It's a bit dishonest to argue for continued car dominance just because it's already status quo.
If better options were available, people would choose those. When we don't make better options because people are stuck in a local optima of car culture, there is no change. My point was what I wrote: you can't make a comparison with less cars as if everything else in society would have remained equal. Of course there would be secondary effects to handle the fact that people would have to live and travel differently.
You don't get to call people "dishonest", tell them to "f off", call them "shitty", then get pious and offended when someone takes exception to that.
> We do better here on HN, as a long term member I'm disappointed in your behavior.
You've been here since 2013. I've been using this account since 2010 so you can "f off" with that, too.
> If better options were available, people would choose those.
"Better" according to who? You?
If people can't get food, they start eating rats and shoe leather. It doesn't make it "better".
The point was that I expected better from _you_, a long standing member here. But your response again shows I need to adjust that expectation.
You: it's not the world we live in right now
Which is a useless retort.
And work the first 25 days out of each month month to pay for it, LOL.
As for stores, suburbanites will still go to the a cheaper, larger store with more selection. That's usually in the same suburb, but still a good drive.
Exhaust. Oil. Tire wear microplastics.
It's anecdotal I know, but as someone who commutes on a bike, the number of times I almost crash by myself per journey is near zero, yet the number of times a car tries to inadvertently occupy the same piece of road as me is multiple.
Here is some data from USA, I've not read it.
"What is safe" obviously depends on who else are on the road.
I like riding motorcycles, but I don't fool myself into thinking that they're anywhere near as safe as a modern car.
In fact, they are responsible for more than 28 times the fatalities per mile traveled than cars.
https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/...
I only got my license a few years ago, public transport works quite well here in Norway, seems I haven't yet learned all the sneaky ways bike riders can surprise ya.
That said, I see idiots behind the wheel causing near crashes several times a week so yeah I guess as a rider those scare you a lot more.
Riding through red lights without stopping or yielding to traffic turning right, riding on sidewalks forcing pedestrians out of their way, zipping back and forth between the sidewalk and road, changing lanes without signaling and assuming the cars will read their minds and slow down for them are all things I saw in my few years living in a bigger city with lots of bicyclists.
Never got into an accident with one, but I was a passenger in a car that nearly hit one. She either had psychological problems, or was intentionally trying to get an insurance payout, because she absolutely tried to get hit, then freaked out on the driver when he managed to slow down in time.
Obviously, some things in the world are necessarily loud, like a jet engine on a plane. Or they are loud with a meaningful purpose, like a big sound system at a concert. But some things are unnecessarily loud with no purpose. Mostly vehicles with modified exhaust and sound systems, but also some other things.
If the noise pollution studies are accurate, reducing or eliminating these sounds will extends the lives of untold numbers of people. People will be healthier thanks to getting better sleep not being woken up. People will have lower blood pressure, and therefore reduce heart disease. People will have less road rage, which will in turn reduce traffic violence.
How do we actually reduce these sounds? Our current policies are not working. Fining people, impounding vehicles, I don't believe any of that will work. It will simply create revenues for the government.
But what solutions does our current society offer that will work? The criminal justice system is not a solution, and will simply cause even more harms. Any solution I can think of that will work is ludicrous and unrealistic.
The best thing I can think of is to simply ban the import or manufacture of the exhaust pipes to begin with. If the supply of them is greatly reduced, and the prices go way up, that could go a long way. It's too much to enforce any restriction one by one. It has to be from the top.
I once had a VW pickup truck, 70hp, which at one point had a broken header. I bring up the power and model just so you know how ridiculous it was to drive around at a Nascar sort of volume. I hated driving it for the week it took to get parts.
I don't mind nicely tuned exhausts, you can make a bike sound really nice compared to the near silence out of so many stock systems. Somewhere around 80-90db both sounds good and is auditory to the rider.
Tinnitus is no fun, the wind noise already aggravates mine as is. I wouldn't risk a ride on my neighbor's Harley for more than a couple minutes, must be something like 125db.
These sound like very quiet cars[0] or not very loud motorcycles. Maybe my anecdata is flawed but I'm pretty sure I can make out motorcycles (and loud cars) on throttle driving an entirely different road, 100's of ft away when I'm driving, nevermind a straight piped harley 2 car lengths behind.
[0] I don't drive a new enough vehicle to attest to modern NVH isolation, but if the driver of a car truely can't hear a ~105 db exhaust noise (~comparable volume to say a horn, or the scream of someone being run over) the problem might lie with the car.
edit: for comparison, a car horn is apparently ~110-115db vs an allegedly 105db motorcycle that was tested. (5-10db is a lot more than it looks, but that should be the ~equivalent of hearing a horn honk from ~100ft away @-6dB/100ft)
Somewhat related, but I think it's so weird all the hate cyclists listening to music get. I don't do it myself, but I soo often read online motorists being angry on some cyclist with their airpod in or something. But even then, a cyclist is probably much more aware of their surroundings. If that's the standard that should be applied, drivers should be mandated to drive with their windows rolled down and no music as well..
Also, this shows how useless a small bell is on a cycle to alert drivers. Hence why have a 115 dB AirZound attached to my bike as well. Sure gets their attention when they think their negligence was about to get them t-boned by a truck.
It’s not just bike exhausts that are loud either. Every night I hear a nearly endless stream of modified cars with pop and bang tunes. There’s not even the supposed justification that it makes you safer in a car, it’s just people doing deliberately inconsiderate things with their vehicles. It’s inflicting annoyance and misery on people for no reason but clout, and we should have less tolerance for it in society generally. It’s also the same drivers who are racing through city centres. I don’t know if they’re just racking up loads of fines and not paying them, or if they’re using swapped plates, but either way, it needs to be enforced better.
But you are right. I can't recall the time anyone rolled coal on motorcyclists, much less killed them trying.
In that vein, the hate for drivers should then be a hundredfold. How many haven't lost a dear one to a car driver?
The times when I’ve intentionally revved my engine to get attention, it’s because a driver was about to merge into me, and they were very close. In heavy traffic I’m often feathering the clutch, and pulling it in quickly to rev is an easier reach than hitting my horn.
Anecdotally, when I switched from a small somewhat quiet bike to a full size cruiser I had WAY fewer sketchy interactions with drivers. They noticed me much better, which kept me safer. I also find loud pipes annoying, but not as annoying as people in cars killing others with the inattention.