Also, serious off-topic question to the motorcycle enthusiasts here: how do you cope with the fact that your weekend leisure ride is often a massive noise disturbance for hundreds of people and animals?
Also, serious off-topic question to the motorcycle enthusiasts here: how do you cope with the fact that your weekend leisure ride is often a massive noise disturbance for hundreds of people and animals?
Something about this generalization rubs me the wrong way. A person who modifies their motorcycle to be extremely loud does not care.
The UK is trialling noise pollution cameras that mail fines to your home, same as for speeding. It's an externality whose days are numbered.
This technology feels like an engineers solution to a trivial legal issue.
The engineering solution approach doesn't seem to be fundamentally different to speed cameras.
Illinois doesn't require vehicle inspections, so there's no opportunity for exhaust modifications to be discovered.
people with loud exhausts are shouting "look at me, look at me", so think of it like a clickwrap license agreeing to be surveilled
As for the noise, I get it. And I think the industry and the riders are to blame, motorbikes have been getting outrageously loud. Especially the fact that some newer bikes even come with exhaust valves that open at like 55-60 km/h is insane to me.
While I enjoy the hobby I cometely understand why Südtirol did what it did and I won't be surprised to see strict limits like these pop up elsewhere too.
When there was a high-speed crash into the barrier at the end, the car would often plummet into a ravine into the valley below. My mother tended to call this "taking the shortcut to Benihana" as that was the restaurant to be found at the bottom of the ravine (not an actual shortcut, but just a macabre sense of humor.)
Now we had some neighbors with a very picturesque home a few blocks down. They were from Switzerland, and Dad owned a Volkswagen repair shop a few blocks in the other direction. Since they worked frequently on German-engineered Volkswagens, they also worked on Porsches. And so it worked out that Dad would often bring home a Porsche to work on or to play with, or something in-between. Dad had 2 or 3 sons who all loved cars, and so by the time they were driving age, there were quite a few Porsches in circulation there.
And we always knew it, because those 911s are not quiet. And the sons would not be quiet either as they gunned their engines to show off their nice Porsches, in various states of souped-up or in-progress repair. It became a more or less nonstop parade of motors for a few years.
My parents never miss an opportunity to complain, and so there is plenty of traffic still to give them a chance. There is at least one resident down the way with an obnoxiously loud motorcycle, so Mom and Dad always cluck and chide and complain as that vehicle takes its turn on the street.
I don't, I ride electric. It's not just leisure rides, too, noise is just as important for daily commute.
If you don't modify the exhaust of a motorcycle, it's noise levels are not different than a car, and substantially quieter than a semi truck.
AFAICT, the noise is the point. The people with loud vehicles (and this includes the rattling bass and coffee can mufflers on low-end econoboxes) are selfish assholes, desperate for attention, often compensating for a failure in another part of their lives. "Loud pipes save lives" has zero data to back it up.
Could say the same for cars, which contribute to more noise pollution.
I’ve had both “loud” bikes and cars (all legal - stock, in fact). The cars easily have 10x the mileage.
The one thing I’d say is - you can’t really control sound of the external world. Cities are infinitely louder. I live in nyc right now and live off a major avenue near the Lincoln tunnel. Whatever annoyances people here have with loud bikes, trust me - my noise is 1000x worse on a daily level. Yet, I’m not perturbed by it unless I open the window cause I chose a place that used quality windows and insulation.
The amount of time me or our kids were woken up by some ferrari, maserati, chopper et al flooring it on purpose on nearby intersection past midnight has been many, punishment 0 nothing. After moving to rural countryside its one of many aspects I am certainly not missing from previous life and would have hard time coming back to lower quality of life in cities.
Moving from cramped suburbia to a few acres in the mountains/countryside is a dream of mine these days