Loud fucking Harley assholes always claim that their bikes are loud as a safety feature. I call bullshit; the only time you can really hear them is when they’re stopped or when they’re going away. Otherwise, while they are loud, it’s difficult to distinguish the source of the noise.
Stop being pussies and 'fess up. You have loud pipes because you are an obnoxious asshole that wants to be noticed. I’ll bet your cap with a built in ponytail, your temporary tattoos, your gay ass chaps, your fake skank girl, your pot belly and graying beard save lives too. Bullshit.
Amen. I’ve got an uncle-in-law who rides motorcycles, and when I was telling him about my new bike, he recommended that I put loud pipes on it. Fuck that noise. (Pun intended.) Noise pollution is a pain even when it’s not deliberate; when it is, it’s completely assholish. I’ll protect myself in other ways that don’t cause hearing loss, thanks.
Interestingly, my boss gave me a motorcycle magazine with an article that says ‘loud pipes save lives’ is a myth. I’m definitely inclined to think it’s a bad habit with a poor rationalization behind it.
ETA: Kawasaki offers their bikes in a bright neon green. It’s awesome. I didn’t see that the dealer had a Vulcan 900 in that color or I’d have gone for that instead of blue.
The most earnest argument I ever heard that “loud pipes save lives” came from a Hell’s Angels associate that I had the misfortune to work with in the nineties.
He also argued, at the same sitting, that adherance to helmet laws constituted a safety hazard because (by covering the ears) helmets made it more difficult for a rider to hear vehicles approaching from behind.
I don’t know how that stupid son-of-a-bitch expected hear anything with his head jammed so far up his ass.
Who listens for vehicles coming up from behind anyway? The Doppler effect suggests that by the time you can hear a car approaching, it’s already too damn close. It takes a tenth of a second to check your mirrors, and should be done as a matter of course in attentive driving.
All this of course ignores the stupidity of arguing for loud pipes while also arguing for needing to hear what’s behind you. There’s probably some dumbass rationale for those ridiculous handlebars that go up higher than your head, too.
This kills me. I had a boyfriend in Chicago who lived down the block from a biker bar. Whenever we were out on his terrace we had to deal with these thunder-farting assholes and their obnoxious unmuffled pipes. “Loud Pipes Saves Lives” became derisive code for us for any manner of bullshit.
There’s no such thing as a “blind spot.” There are areas you cannot see in your mirrors, but if you’re turning or changing lanes, it’s incumbent upon you to be sure it’s safe to do so. That doesn’t mean relying solely on your mirrors; you also have to turn to look at the areas your mirrors can’t see.
So what? Your blind spot only matters if you’re going to be changing lanes or merging, and you should be checking it then. If you’re going straight and the motorcycle is going straight, it doesn’t matter one bit if either of you know the other’s there.
Loud pipes dont’ save a damned thing, and often times they put you right in the sights of John Q. Law, which is the last place any self respecting biker wants to be since those encounters tend to cost lots of money. Muffle that hog and let the cops chase down some other asshat and give him that ticket.
If you ride a motorcycle and you don’t want to die, it is YOUR responsibility to ride defensively all the time, as if nobody else can see you and every car is about to hit you. You can’t rely on “loud pipes” or anything else to alert the “cagers” to you. They will not see you. Half of them are talking on their cell phones or listening to their music cranked all the way up anyway.
I gave up motorcycle riding because I found it to be more trouble than it was worth, with the risk greater than the reward. I was scared off by too many stories in the newspaper about guys my age getting killed by cars, even while wearing their helmets and everything. Maybe I’ll pick it up again someday, who knows.
Amen to all of the above. Deliberate assholish behavior on the part of both bikers and drivers causes a whole lot more motorcycle deaths than decent mufflers do. To me, loud pipes are the calling cards of idiots who feel they have carte blanche to weave in and out of traffic at high speeds while expecting others to adjust their driving to accomodate them.
And a special, heartfelt “thank you” to doper bikers who know how to ride like human beings and realize that my criticism is NOT directed at them.
The part that a lot of people don’t realize is that Harley doesn’t produce their bikes with loud pipes, and it’s actually a dealer or aftermarket mod. In fact, Harley is one of the companies that pioneered exhaust systems to *dampen * exhaust noise. I can dig up a cite if I get called on it, but I’ve posted the cite to the Dope in a previous thread.
How did he sneak into your blind spot if his pipes were so loud? :rolleyes:
That’s their trademark color. Honda’s is red, Yamaha’s is blue, and I’m sure there are others. Quite handy when trying to identify dirtbikes, especially.
Holy shit, Q.E.D said something I agree with in a pit thread… and one about driving, no less?! What is this world coming to?
We used to live near an intersection near where a Harley dealer was located. Those !@#$%^%^ bikers would REV up and explosively take off when the light changed, and the noise was deafening. You couldn’t talk, couldn’t hear the radio, couldn’t talk until those sphincters on wheels passed by.
Although I’m opposed to the use of guns, I would have cheerfully taken up sniper activities against them.
Really Q.E.D? Are you genuinely unfamiliar with the fact that the majority of people refer to blind spots as the areas that can’t be seen while looking forward with the aid of mirrors?
When a dog or a kid jumps out in front of you do you first check your non-blind spot to see if it’s safe to change lanes? Safe driving is the responsibility of all parties on the road, not just one. I check my mirrors and turn my head when I can. But, if you hang out in my blind spot all day and I have to swerve and brake at the same time to avoid a sudden hazard, then I’m not going to feel much remorse when you get run off the road.
No, I’m completely unfamiliar with that usage which I even alluded to right there in the post you auoted. :rolleyes:
Look, retard, I put the words in “quotes” for reason. That reason being that the term is really a misnomer, common though it may be; there is nowhere around a typical vehicle that you can’t see either with mirrors or by turning your head for a quick glance. That is, there’s no area around your car that’s truly blind. Gettit?
Dogs, yes. If it’s a choice between running down a dog or smashing into another car on the road, well, sorry Fido. Kids? It depends; I’ll always try to swerve into an area I know is clear, but obviously that’s not always possible. I generally know what’s in my “blind spot” in any case since it’s my habit to periodically glance around just for that reason. Result: I’ve only once hit someone in my blind spot, and that was admittedly my own stupidity.
If you’re paying attention, you should know that somebody is in your blind spot. They don’t just teleport there.
I was actually checking this on my car today. On the left side, for a small car, there’s about four feet of slop a driver can have and stay in my blind spot. On the right side, it’s almost non existent, since I count looking at the front windshield post and seeing them in my peripheral vision as them not being in my blind spot. I estimate I spend 35% of my time behind the wheel looking at my mirrors. If somebody is in my blind spot and I don’t know it, I’m doing something wrong. YMMV.
More than once I’ve become aware of a motorcycle near me on noise alone. I think that loud bikes probably do reduce the chance of a biker getting clipped because another driver didn’t realize they were there.
But they are obnoxious. Also, I know a few “lifers” who have ridden Harleys their whole life; without fail they have significant hearing loss.
Hell, even in a car at 6-12 feet away those stupid bikes hurt my ears. It’s no wonder that they damage the hearing of the riders.
