hi, well as we all already no it can some times be hard to see a motorcycle in the blind spots of your car when you are driving . but we will often hear what is around us as we drive . this is why most motorcycles have a louder exhaust . its really a safty thing , if you hear it , you might look a bit harder be for you change lanes . and not kill me or another rider .
I would not ride again with the headlight off in the city.
When I rode my Honda during the day, I switched the headlight to high beam because the higher point of aim made it more noticeable. To see what I mean, have someone shine a flashlight in your face from a few feet away. Even in bright daylight, it will dazzle you and get your attention. Of course, I switched back to low beam at night to avoid blinding oncoming traffic. My bike also had air horns which worked much better than the sqeaking mouse Honda installed.
Any biker with more than 500 miles behind him/her knows to either not ride in a car driverās blind spot or be ready to quickly get out of the way. A truck is too slow at changing lanes to be a problem for a bike. You canāt touch me with a truck. It is understood by bikers that cagers and trucks donāt always see a bike when changing lanes and are not or should not be offended if it happens. It comes with the territory.
Do the best that you can when changing lanes and please donāt ask for loud pipes. Donāt feed the beast!
What a crock! If you want to be seen, make yourself easier to see. Wearing bright reflective riding gear will improve your chances of being seen. Loud pipes wonāt. This has been scientifically proven. Donāt tell me that you have to be loud to be seen. That is like telling me that changing the color of your food will change the way it tastes. Hearing and seeing are two distinct senses.
Here is a good way to shut them down Nation Wide. Call your Govenor or whoever and insist that every MV has a catalytic converter on it. They have them on some new bikes so why not all ?
Just wondering how many of your 35 years you have rode in metropolitan areas? My own personal storyā¦ I learned to ride in Tokyo, ride in Honolulu, and have taken a break for now due to restrictions on shipping personal property at my present duty location. Anyhow, Ride safe Craig58.
Iāve ridden in a few places with traffic, I live near denver and ride in their traffic if thatās where I happen to be going. At one point I worked in boston and lived in southern NH and would sometimes commute through boston rush hour on a bike (interesting, but probably not as bad as tokyo). I didnāt really like to ride in NH because they had a helmet law at the time (sorta seemed like it made riding more trouble than it was worth). I also lived near pittsburgh for a couple of years and rode round there quite a bit. I no longer have to commute locally (I work from home when Iām not traveling), but I donāt avoid metro areas on a bike. Itās often easier to negotiate traffic on a bike than a car, you do have to pay more attention. I prefer to ride out in the sticks, but then you have to watch out for the wildlife (you do not want to hit a deer on a bike).
call the police and complain but dont give your name, so the harley owner cannot find you
Most of those with a loud Harley would do well to trade it in for its predecessor: a bicycle that uses human power and is virtually silent.
It would cut down noise pollution, air pollution and lard pollution, ie the potbellies most bikers get from lack of exercise!
Pedal Power is easy on the wallet too as you cruise by the filling stations that motorcyclists have to patronize regularly.
If involved in an accident, a cyclist is far less likely to be killed than a motorcylcist due to the lower average speed involved;
thus supporting the Darwinian theory of survival of the fittest (not necessarily fastest). The are few elderly motorcyclists and even fewer with intact hearing.
āLoud Pipes save livesā I own a Harley, and it is a bit loud. Truth is, I try to find the right tuned exhaust pipes that give that reconizable sound without being ear bleeding. What most non-riders donāt understand is that a quiet bike is almost invisible on the road. Out of the corner of someoneās eye they see a bike and donāt register it as a 55 mph machine carrying a passenger(s) that could be wiped out in the blink of an eye. At least with a set of pipes that can be heard they know Iām not tooling around on a huffy. We get cut off in intersections, raced onto ramps and pulled out in front of. At least Iāll know I have a chance if Iām heard. Last time I roded down a main road quietly, I had a school bus pull out onto the road and almost clean my clock. I was forced across on-coming traffic to the opposite shoulder to avoid being one with itās tires. The driver never stopped. My family almost lost me for good because I wasnāt but a speck coming down the road.
If thatās what you really think, itās time to buy a buick. If you think loud pipes are making you safer, you are kidding yourself. If I was afraid to ride with legal pipes, I would quit riding today.
To everyone who is not a raving lunatic, this is an example of what not to do. This is why there are anti-road rage laws. This is how people get shot. This is one of the most self-destructive road rage incidents that I have ever read. This is a bunch of macho B.S. that should stand as an example of what not to do.
One of the first things that new motorcycle riders learn in the Motorcycle Safety Foundationās Basic Riderās Course is that you are responsible for your safety. Your safety is too important to trust to any stranger. Donāt be a macho overly-aggressive jerk. It will get you killed.
the loudest bike iāve ever had, was a honda v4 Sabre with aftermarket pipes. it also happened to not have a working horn. (i was the 2d or 3d owner)
there was all of ONE time that i appreciated the loudness, when a woman tried to turn left in front of me entering a shopping center. i whacked the throttle (with the clutch in) and the noise made her back off. i couldāve also hit the horn, if it worked.
i personally DETEST loud bikes! it makes the whole motoring (and even non-motoering) public dislike, even HATE, ALL BIKERS! and it is NOT necessary!
as for the claim harleys NEED them to get untapped power, thatās a LOUSY, flimsy excuse. there are more efficient bikes available, that are not loud. i recall a reader in one of the bike magazines asking the tech person, Howcum, after putting in $5000 worth of speed goodies into his Harley, he still couldnāt outrace some of the Metric bikes?
to paraphrase the response: No matter how much money you spend and time you waste on brushing, you just CANNOT make a silk purse out of a sowās ear!
with regard to the [i]supposed [/] safety aspect:
SMART riders simply make sure they are seen. besides the basic avoidance of being in blind spots, i simply FLASH MY HIGH BEAMS anytime there is any doubt i mite not be noticed. itās a relatively inoffensive āvisual hornā and itās hard for anyone facing you to NOT notice!
Iāll tell you exactly why Harleys will not outrun the metric multi-cylinder bikes.
Itās because Harleys are not made for that purpose and most Harley owners donāt care if they outrun them or not.
Harleys are made for low RPM highway cruising. That is their primary purpose in life and if someone is whining about a Harley drag racing problem to a bike magazine then they need to go back to school.
The closest thing HD has to a street racer is a Sportster or Buell, and even that is debateable.
Itās like comparing a Ford diesel pickup to a Dodge Viper. Different vehicles - different purposes.
As to the safety aspect of flashing lights, what about an incident here some years ago of a woman who ran over a cop in broad daylight while he was on a Harley police Servi-Car.
This thing is as wide as 3 bikes, big marked box on the rear, all lighting on including flashing lights front and rear, and he was nailed anyway.
The bike was wiped but luckily the cop survived.
The woman claimed the usual; āshe did not see himā, and I doubt that a well trained motorcycle cop flashing the headlight would have made one iota of difference.
It could help in certain situations but is not a fit-all.
Iām a long term motorcyclist, (You know the difference between a biker and motorcyclist, donāt you? Mufflers.) so I canāt help tossing a couple of centavos into this discussion. This is a common topic in bike discussion groups too.
The reason theyāre not banned is that thereās too many biker (the guys without mufflers) wannabees who vote. Biker culture is based on loud pipes and chrome. Mufflers are effeminate. This from the guys who trailer their bikes to the rally, spend hours shining and polishing, then ārideā five miles in a parade on their butt jewelry to park in a group and rev their engines for hours on end. Really masculine, that. Somehow it appeals to a lot of otherwise normal doctors and dentists.
Should it be banned? Of course. And riders should be required to protect their skulls too. And bikes without brakes on both wheels should never pass DMV inspection. And talking on a cell phone while driving should get you a really expensive ticket. Thereās lots of things that SHOULD happen.
Denver recently passed a city ordinance requiring all motorcycles to have OEM mufflers. This is causing lots of chest beating and hair pulling in the bike discussion groups. Its UNFAIR! How about cars with loud pipes? How about Boomcars? Iām waiting to see if they actually enforce it.
Here in Austin itās illegal to operate any motor vehicle with a sound system audible for more than 30 feet, any time, any where. Itās almost never enforced unless someone complains. Which means that the west side (the more affluent side of town) is fairly quiet, the east side is not. If nobody complains, anything goes. A similar proposal on bike mufflers died quietly, mostly because a lot of people in town make a lot of money on the ROT rally in June when 40,000 bikers spend a weekend deafening Central Texas.
So if youāre really bothered, start pushing your local city council. But whatever you do, keep in mind that not all bikes are loud. Please donāt lump us motorcyclists in with bikers. Weāre easy to spot. Our bikes have bugs and road grit, worn tires and mufflers.
The vast majority of bikers/motorcyclists use mufflers. There are only a small minority who run straight pipes.
I consider myself a biker and every one of my bikes has always had mufflers with baffles.
Iāll ask this. I own 2 old Harleys. One is an ex-police bike (complete with police gear, and yes the red lights are covered) and the other is an ex-WWII U.S. Navy Shore Patrol bike.
The cop bike, with the OEM muffler, is louder than many bikes on the road today. The ex-Navy bike, also OEM muffled, is even louder than that.
Factory exhausts on both of them, so should they be banned since they could both be considered annoyingly loud?
I donāt have a problem with helmets at all. I do have a problem with someone who thinks the government should be everybodyās nanny.
And the ācost to societyā argument does not wash. If that were the case then society would save a lot of money if everyone involved in any activity was forced to wear a helmet.
Early this morning on the national news they did a story about a guy getting killed after falling off a ski lift. They stated he āwould have survived if he had been wearing a helmetā.
This is exactly the point I made a while back when referring to Congressman Sonny Bono getting killed while on a ski outing and dying from head injuries suffered when he hit a tree.
(And yes, my bikes have mufflers, worn tires, oil stains, chipped paint, and scuffs.)
ok4450, the statistics prove that states that have eliminated helmet laws see an increase in motorcycle fatalities (both in number and per rider). Whenever someone dies unnecessarily, a price is paid. Whether that cost is related to money and healthcare or the loss that loved ones feel, it is real in both cases. If all of those costs do not wash with you, then logic must escape you.
Personally, I am okay with states elinimating helmet laws, as long as they require training for licensing. Whether it is a car or a motorcycle, training and testing should be manditory to get a license. If states require the MSF Basic Riderās Course for every rider, then those riders can make informed decisions regarding protective gear. If they are not educated, they canāt make informed decisions.
I share your frustration and wonder as to why chopper riders are allowed to get away with disturbing ā no, letās more accurately say ASSAULTING ā neighborhoods with their vehiclesā extreme noise. Weāve got one in our neighborhood, and I guarantee you that in the hot summer months, when peoplesā home windows are open, heās waking familiesā babies and young children up when he roars back into his driveway at night. Oh yeah, he also leaves for work in the 6am range and loves to gun his bike into high speed (and sound) right from the second he leaves his driveway. This absolute JERK is nothing but a nuisance whoās crying out āplease notice how macho I am.ā
So, whatās up? Are municipal/state officials just too afraid of these guys to adopt some ordinances/laws with āteethā that could reverse this trend? Or, are local police too afraid of these guys to ticket them for obvious, blatant disturbances of the peace?
These bikes are cranking out noise at levels well over 100 decibels. It just isnāt right. Not by a long shot.
I donāt have a problem with helmets either, but Iām not about to start wear one while either riding my bike or skiing. If we want to talk about ācost to society,ā maybe we should do something about everyone who smokes, drinks, and eats fast-food too?
I have no problem with legal pipes on old bikes, there is no reason to āback-fitā current requirements to old vehicles, there are not enough of them around to be a significant issue. However, I would bust anyone riding on the street with āoff-road onlyā pipes. Let the after-market go through the correct process to sell street legal pipes.