Where I live, more than any other place I’ve ever been, Harleys thunder up and down the major thoroughfares. Their straight pipes rattle the buildings at all hours, even early in the morning when they leave the local bars.
My question is, if I’m required by law to have a muffler on my car for noise ordinances, how are so many of these bikers able to ride around with vehicles louder than city buses and dump trucks? Not to mention that the character of sound associated with a Harley accelerating is infinitely more jarring than any other vehicle I’ve ever heard, with the possible exception of low-level jet fly-bys (4th of July parades).
This noise is very disrupting at 2 AM when I’m trying to sleep, and I’d like to know if I can do anything about it. Some guy’s attempt at being a bad-ass shouldn’t affect 12 square residential blocks at 3 AM on a Sunday. Do I have recourse? Or do these Harleys have free reign?
(Syzygy, trying really hard to keep this from degenerating into a Harley Pit rant.)
No, there is no Harley noise law, that would be discrimination.
But, NY State, Vehicle and Traffic Law, Chapter Seventy-One of the Consolidated Laws, Title III, Article 9, §381.11 and §381.12 say something about motorcycle exhaust noise here.
By paying the occasional ticket and/or staying where the authorities don’t ticket for open pipes.
You might call the cops if the same rider goes by at the same time every weekend. The police are usually busy on Saturday nights, but they might be able to stake out for this guy.
Also, many cities and towns have individual noise ordinances which outlaw noises of a certain number of decibels at a certain distance. It wouldn’t matter if it was a Harley or the stereo in a Mitsubishi.
When I was managing townhomes and had my sporty, with standard exhaust which I kept tuned pretty well for a carb motor considering I rode all year I used to have to push my bike out onto the road before starting because my tenants complained so much. It’s not really that loud with a helmet on and in between the pipes.
Actually there are Federal Standards for how loud pipes can be. I don’t have my bike with me but on the exaust there are labels that say they meet the current standards. They get away with it as said before because they just don’t get stopped all that much for it.