I would be careful. You know the kinda reputation those Harley riders have.
Lawyers and doctors. The whole lot of them.
When I was getting kitted out for riding two months ago, I hadn’t even considered earplugs. Based on this thread, I plan to pick some up on the way home today.
That may work ok for cars but bikes can fit into those little areas mirrors will miss. One must always turn their head to make sure you haven’t missed something. Even bikers will miss other bikes. I almost learned this lesson the hard way when I didn’t check my mirrors and thought no one was there and damn near creamed another biker. As I’ve been told before
Mirrors tell us what we can’t do, not what we can do.
As for loud pipes they piss me off as well. They, along with the fucking idiots who squeeze in and out of traffic make it worse for people like me who obey the fucking law and keep up with traffic. Half the driving public hates motorcyclists because of them, the other half totally ignores us. The majority of motorcyclists are normal non asshole people but we get tainted by the rest of the stupid fuckers.
They’re a higher dB, and also a higher frequency, which earplugs have a harder time blocking.
I also like them because you can hear your own engine when you’re going faster than 35mph, instead of just the wind noise.
You’ll have an epiphany, I can all but promise you.
I’ve been thinking about getting some of these, taking the silicon off my earphones, and making a hybrid. If I do it this weekend, I"ll post back to this thread and let you guys know how it went.
The point is that it’s possible to set up your mirrors so there are no “little areas mirrors will miss”, most people just don’t know how to. I totally agree that this is no substitute for an over the shoulder check though.
The “blind spot” I’m most weary of is the one created by the front windshield pillars. A car or a motorcycle can easily hide behind those pillars particularly if you’re gradually turning at a T junction as you check for traffic.
No, there are little areas that you will miss unless you have huge mirrors. I’ve had my mirrors set up this way for years and still sometimes miss bikers. While cars can come through some bikes are so thin that it is possible to totally miss them. Even the car talk (pdf) guys show there is some small blind spots. While they maybe small it is possible for bikers to fit into them.
I think the blind spot discussion is overlooking a simpler point. Unless you’re in bumper-to-bumper traffic, a good motorcycle rider shouldn’t BE in your blind spot anyway! It’s not hard to understand where the major blind spots are on a car, and it doesn’t take much effort to position oneself out of them. A rider should damn well be aware they’re on a little vehicle and not a big honkin’ Hummer.
The only person that can keep a motorcycle rider safe is the rider, by being aware of their surroundings and reacting appropriately. Loud pipes defer this responsibility by banking on the notion that other drivers will hear and behave accordingly. That’s not safe riding, and that’s why accidents happen.
Obviously I’m not saying drivers have carte blanche to run over idiot riders. But their safety is their responsibility.
The blind spots as shown in the PDF are far too small to hide a motorcycle, however I accept that not all vehicles can be setup with no significant blind spots.
Bosstone, agreed. It is the responsibility of a driver to know where their blind spots are and check them, it is also the equal responsibility of other drivers and riders to know where other vehicle’s blind spots are and actively avoid being in them.
If you are arguing that this makes the whole effect worthwhile, it makes about as much sense as abolishing seatbelts because one person drowned while wearing them.
I’ve always been of the opinion that the problem is not that loud pipes don’t save lives, it’s that they save the lives of the kind of annoying assholes who don’t mind disturbing (among other things) the sleep of literally HUNDREDS of people who they pass by on their way to the 7-11 at two in the morning; which isn’t to say that I think they should all go die under the wheels of a bus, but rather that it’s a bit like insisting that my assistant’s obnoxious gong-banging is the only thing keeping away the horseflies while I grease up our tandem unicycle in the middle of the suburbs, because Lord knows there aren’t any other non-horsefly prone hobbies/means of transportation for us to choose from.
All the sound in the world can’t help you if other people can’t see you. Loud pipes might alert someone to your presence, but if you’re sitting right where they have a hard time seeing you, it doesn’t help anything.
The trade-off just isn’t worth it. Loud pipes occasionally help get you noticed in situations where visibility alone doesn’t cut it, but at the cost of constantly causing an ear-shattering noise. You’d probably get as much of an increase in presence wearing reflective or bright clothing (I have a reflective LED light on the back of my helmet) as well as riding more sensibly, and it wouldn’t disturb folks who aren’t in your immediate riding space.
(Granted, I understand folks ride for fun, not to be sensible, but in my so-far-limited experience the motorcycle is fun enough even when you are riding defensively.)
Thats exactly what I was going to do. Because I heard him I waited until I located him. Bikers should know better than to ride in blind spots but we all mess up a little now and then.
You’ve missed the point entirely. Regardless of whether he’s riding your blind spot or not, YOU are responsible for ensuring the way is clear when changing lanes, merging or turning. You should look around and check your blind spots whether or not you hear someone there.
Coming back from lunch, I was driving alongside a big, old truck with an extraordinarily loud exhaust pipe that roared unpleasantly every time the driver gunned the engine.
Sure enough, there was a Harley-Davidson badge on the side of the truck.
I’m willing to accept not all HD zealots are pricks, but the ones I see sure don’t do anything to defuse the stereotype.
Of course most cars have blind spots, either they way they and their mirrors are configured or the way their users use them. Hell, I remember the first time I was surprised by a car on a cross street at a 4-way stop, because if timed just right a crossing car will be obscured by my rear-view mirror. But of course that is no insurmountable problem - all I have to do is make sure the mirror isn’t obscuring a crossing car. Same way I check my mirrors AND shoulder check EVERY time I change lanes, NEVER rely on mirrors to back up, etc.
Re: loud bikes, it always seems to me that they should be liable to citations for violating noise ordinances. Same way that I believe many overloud car stereos can lead to a ticket. I’d think police departments would look to that as a source of revenue.
I can’t think of anything I do that is as loud as many of the motorcycles I hear. Probably operating a circular saw or something. But I do that only rarely, and usually inside of my house - not down some strangers’ street in the middle of the night. Just takes different types, I guess - and one type has absolutely zero qualms about being an asshole to countless strangers on a regular basis. It would bother me not a bit if they died.
I get a lot more information from my mirrors backing up than I would from turning around and looking. When I was learning to back up a trailer, the guy I worked with wouldn’t even let me turn around, he said it was ‘cheating’. In a pickup truck with no trailer, I’ll still turn around, because I get a wider field of view, but there’s no reason one can’t rely on mirrors alone when backing up.
I must not have read the thread carefully enough, because I did not realize we were talking about trailers. I think the last time I pulled a trailer was 20 years ago.
Many people seem to feel it is adequate to rely on mirrors along when backing a car/van out of a parking space into traffic. :rolleyes:
I ride and apparently do a lot of really bad things. I have super quiet mufflers, less noise than any bike I’ve ever ridden. I do have a really loud horn if I need to get your attention. I wear ear buds, connected to an MP3 player/FM radio/Phone and wireless intercom to talk to my passernger. The player does cut off or lowers vol when I get a call or when the rider in back (wife) talks to me. My mirrors are below the handlebars and are very large compared to most I’ve seen but I pay real close atttention to where I am in relation to where YOUR blind spots might be. But since I’m accident free for almost 30 years, maybe I’ll just keep doing what I do.
Not that I disagree with you on assholishness causing biker deaths, but I think you’re mixing up stereotypes here. From my experience, the riders zipping in and out of lanes are generally on crotch rockets. While they may also have loud pipes, the OP seemed to be calling out Harley riders. I just don’t see that much out of them.
For the record, I do have a Harley. It has stock pipes. In most situations, it’s not all that loud. Also if it’s after about 8:00pm, I’m generally very light on the throttle when taking off to keep it as quiet as possible. I’ve never had a complaint from a neighbor. I have had self-absorbed dickweeds in cars do plenty of dumb shit around me though to the point where I have considered louder pipes.
Strange…after 25 years of riding no Tinnitus. but I can hear cars around me.
There is plenty of mesh armor you can wear in summer now. It’s a better choice.