Have you NOT been on the highway and heard the rumble of a Harley behind you or at least near you?
You ARE aware of a bike with loud pipes moreso than a bike with a quiet exhaust. By definition.
Yes, thanks.
How about this thread, lots of people complaining about the noise and how loud it is, therefore they are noticing the bike. If someone can hear a bike in their home in the middle of the night, some dummy sitting at a stop sign applying makeup or texting is going to hear it and notice it.
Agreed
Biker here, and I hate the bad image that loud pipes give to us all. My bike has a factory exhaust system, and is fairly quiet. As someone upthread said, bikes just don’t have the space for an extensive exhaust system, so even the best bike is probably louder than a modern car when accelerating. At idle, my bike is probably a tiny bit louder than your average Honda Accord. No need to blip the throttle, because my bike is well tuned and in perfect working order. Jackholes revving their engines are just showing off or something.
If your bike won’t idle, then get the damn thing fixed.
As for a bike being so race-tuned that it won’t idle, then that bike does not belong on the street.
Yes, I ride my bike almost everyday, and no, you won’t hear me when I ride through your neighborhood. 
No, it means that I noticed that the motorcycle passing me is loud, it does not mean I became aware of, or would not become aware of, the motorcycle had it not been loud.
If it was loud you would have known it was behind you not beside you, and that’s what’s important.
To my knowledge, no legitimate study has ever shown any truth to the “loud pipes save lives” slogan.
Statistics prove that only 3% of motorcycle crashes occur from rear-end collisions. Statistics also show that over 77% of collisions happen between 45 degrees to the left and 45 degrees to the right of where the driver is FACING. So over 3/4 of all collisions are frontal and semi-side collisions of some kind or another.
Pipe noise is mostly sent to the rear, where rarely any collisions occur. Very little of the obnoxious sound is heard in front of the motorcycle by that little ole lady nestled in the very quiet cabin of her automobile.
Yes.
Yes, they do. You, have obviously never driven a motorcycle.
I, on the other hand, speak from over 30 years of riding experience. 
My loud pipes have saved me from being run over, countless times.
I started riding in about 1978. I still own a licensed bike, although I don’t ride much anymore. If personal experience counts as evidence here, what my experience tells me about “loud pipes save lives” is–nonsense.
Isn’t an ‘I do what I want’ attitude pretty much what is meant by douchebag?
Watch the “Loud pipes for safety!” crowd clam up when you suggest neon vests and orange flags on 6’ fiberglass poles. I mean, safety first, right?
You might want to rethink your riding style if you’re having constant close calls.
20 years, 400K miles, close calls counted on one hand.
Sure, probably a lot of people pulling out in front of them, who would have heard them coming.
You’re kinda arguing our point for us. Loud pipes are heard in front of the motorcycle and inside quiet auto cabins, so thanks for the help I guess.
Nobody is arguing about safety first, that’s just you. Our point is that like orange vests, loud pipes are also noticeable.
I live on the 4th floor of an apartment building and I’ve literally had to pause music and/or television because I couldn’t hear it over the douchcycles riding down the street that crosses my street down the block. I thoroughly despise these selfish noise junkies. Conversely, I want to express my great appreciation for the majority of riders who don’t do this bullshit.
Don’t care. By that logic, everyone should put a siren on their bike, or car, or whatever.
Loud pipes may or may not marginally increase the safety of the rider. That’s simply irrelevant. It does not confer on a motorcyclist the right to violate noise regulations and wake up everyone in the neighborhood with his/her annoying noise.
30 years of experience here too.
If you’ve had “countless” close calls with being run over, you’re doing it wrong.
And, as I said above, the (arguable) safety advantage of loud pipes is completely irrelevant. Your “right” to ride with loud pipes is trumped by the rights of others to a reasonable level of ambient noise.
That marginal increase may mean the difference between me going home to see my kids or not so in my opinion it trumps your right to quiet. If people would pay attention when they are driving, we wouldn’t have to worry about it.
What? What kind of scrambled logic gets you to the point where I’m “kind arguing your point”?
Let me simplify for ya. Loud sound comes out of the BACK of your pipes. That sound is overwhelmingly aimed at people BEHIND you. Most accidents happen from in FRONT of you. While some of the sound is heard forward of you, it’s minor compared to the noise pollution spewing from behind your thumping cruiser.
Oh yeah, just for the record. 32 years riding, Over 200K on about 15 or so different bikes. Only close call I’ve ever had was me overcookng a corner and barely holding it together. Loud pipes would have done me no good.
What did do me REAL good was taking a motorcycle safety course, and then working on continuing to improve my riding skills. Took a course at a track school a few years ago, even though I have little interest in tracking a bike. Took the class to learn more about handling my bike at the edge of it’s capabilities. Made me a better rider on the street, regardless of what other drivers do. Not counting on a loud obnoxious motorcycle to protect me.
In my experience, the louder the pipes on a motorcycle, the more likely that motorcycle is used primarily to cruise from poser bar to poser bar.
Well, you could just drive a car and be safer, pipes or not. But your concern about your child growing up fatherless isn’t so great to impinge on your desire to ride motorcycles. So let’s be honest about what we’re weighing: it isn’t safety vs. noise, it’s riding vs. noise.