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Thursday, October 7, 2010

From Long Beach CA

OFF THE WIRE
CALIFORNIA:

http://www.lbpost.com/news/greggory/10481
How Loud Is Too Loud? When Motorcycles Run Amok by Greggory Moore | No Destination | 10.04.10 | | Text Size: + -
10:40am | Although it's not just a problem in Long Beach—witness this very funny South Park episode revving on the issue1—you're probably well aware that obscenely loud motorcycles are commonplace 'round these parts.
I live right on Ocean Blvd. downtown, so at least once a week I am treated to a little posse of these two-wheelers cruising past my home. And man, is it ridiculous. Routinely I hear car alarms sounding in their wake, triggered by the ridiculous decibel levels thrown off by these throbbing machines.
It's bad enough when these guys motor by at a gentle ADVERTISEMENTcruise. But probably even more frequently I hear one guy by himself (or perhaps with a couple of friends) racing along as if he's trying to win the world championship.
It's no different when I'm out. Sit outside at a coffeehouse or restaurant for long enough, and there's almost bound to be a moment when you'll have to stop your conversation to let this motor machismo pass—because there's no way your voice can compete. If they happen to be accelerating as they zip on down the road, your might need to plug your ears to avoid physical discomfort.
It's certainly understandable why people like to ride their motorcycles on Ocean Blvd., Shoreline Dr., 2nd St. through Belmont Shore and Naples, etc. We live in the midst of pleasant surroundings, with weather that for most of the year is accommodating to owners of open-air vehicles.
But why the excessive noise, guys?
No doubt part of the reason is that motorcycle culture has come more into vogue in recent years, as can be seen in everything from reality TV to the rise to prominence of Long Beach's own West Coast Choppers. These bellwethers of the subculture focus on the ostentatious: custom-made machines tricked out with cartoonish fabrications and needless horsepower.
Most motorcycles riders will tell you that volume increases safety. If your motorcycle is loud, it's a lot less likely that a diver is inadvertently going to lane-change into you or pull out in front of you because she didn't see you coming.
This is a legitimate argument. I drive a motorscooter with a 125cc engine—pretty damn small, yet still powerful enough to get me going 55 mph (fast enough for me on that thing, I can tell you)—and I can guarantee it commonly goes unheard by the drivers around me. So it ain't like I don't get it.
But still I'm saying: dude. Many of these monstrosities cruising down the boulevard are clearly designed to be obnoxiously loud—probably 5x as loud as needed for them to be heard by anyone in a car, even with the radio blaring. Some of these choppers and the like can be every bit as loud as the sirens on police cars and fire trucks, emergency vehicles that by design need to get where they're going as quickly as possible and are circumventing traffic laws to do so—two conditions that absolutely necessitate making those sharing the road aware of their presence. But these are two conditions that absolutely do not apply to you on your overpriced Harley.
Last week Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger—himself a motorcyclist—signed SB 435, which, according to the governor's press secretary (as quoted in the Los Angeles Times), "make[s] California consistent with federal law in respect to motorcycle parts, pollution and noise standards."
How do we go about putting this piece of legislation into practice to improve our community's quality of life without unfairly impinging on individual freedom? From my perspective it's not the most straight-ahead issue, because I am libertarian through and through, and basically I don't want police or government doing anything to restrict individual freedom, unless the exercise of that freedom impinges upon the freedom of others.
But figuring out where the lines are is probably more art than science. Nonetheless, in drawing those lines, it does seem to me that the most egregious noise-polluters cruising our streets deserve to be subject to fine if they insist on projecting pain-inducing noise into our ears.
Have your motorcycle. Make it loud enough to be heard by those sharing the road with you. But dude, let's be real.
Footnotes 1Be warned, though: the episode's deeper philosophical consideration—namely, that the meaning of words lies only in their usage—centers around a common slur for homosexuals (which the boys neither understand nor use as a slur against gays, and thus embark on a quest to officially have the word's meaning changed to fit their usage).