By D'Val Westphal / Of the Journal
THE DANGERS AND ANNOYANCES OF LOUD MOTORCYCLES: After the recent sound-off on muffler-less cycles, John Seaver emails, “I have been the wonderful recipient of a blast of motorcycle noise while riding my bicycle on Tramway. It appears it is amusing to these motorcyclists who modify their mufflers to an extremely high pitch.
“They will be cruising by at 50-60 mph and then coast and then rev the engine super high, and it almost caused me to crash my bike it was so disturbing. I don’t know how the police can catch these guys. The motorcycles seem to be these Asian bikes that go very fast very quickly. The riders must get a kick out of scaring cyclists and pedestrians because it seems to be done on purpose.”
CG writes “Boy have you hit a pet peeve with this one.
“I can’t understand why this isn’t seen as an easily solvable problem. As a motorcycle owner, I know that all motorcycles come from the factory with EPA-certified mufflers, and it is against federal law to modify them so as to make them louder. It would seem simple to pull loud bikes over and make them prove that their mufflers are legal. There’s no need for decibel meters; the worst offenders are painfully obvious.
“I also agree with your correspondent’s opinion on noise and safety. If there’s a link there, then why do cruisers and sport bikes, which are most frequently modified, have worse accident records than other bikes? Let me just close by opining that those who feel the need to have loud pipes might be suffering from equipment inadequacies of another type.”
And finally James Steeves emails “A few years ago… I was one of the volunteers at the Seal Beach, Calif., police department … a small community of 24,000 by the ocean south of Los Angeles.
“One day our orientation was given by Joe Something. Joe was the chief of the five-man motorcycle unit. He was, needless to say, a biker. At the Q&A point I asked why the cops in Seal Beach didn’t do something about the motorcycles that passed through the town on the Pacific Coast Highway. People at sidewalk cafes along the PCH had to suspend conversation when a group of bikes approached … Three or four bikes, all with either no mufflers or modified ones, can damned near shatter windows, and it wasn’t unusual to see 10 or more bikes apparently traveling in a pack.
“Anyway Joe said that, years ago they used to stop bikers and issue a provisional ticket. This required a biker to restore his pipes to factory specs and return to the Seal Beach P.D. within a certain period to show they had complied with the law in order to have their ticket rescinded. Joe said the bikers would do that and then change their pipes back the same day to the racket makers that got them in trouble with the SBPD. So, Joe said, we accomplished nothing.
“… I decided not to push it but, as I thought of it later, I realized what utter nonsense it was that nothing would be accomplished by issuing a provisional ticket. In fact, a lot would be accomplished. If a biker from, say 35 miles down the coast, had to restore his bike to factory specs and return to the SBPD to get the ticket rescinded, he’d have to take time off work and make a 70-mile round-trip on a weekday to Seal Beach to get it done. And if the SBPD kept a record showing that a particular dude had done it before, the ticket issued would not be a provisional one.
“Later, as I thought about it, I realized that it shouldn’t have been surprising that Joe thought that, essentially, no police action was appropriate because Joe, though a motorcycle cop, was also a biker!”
— This article appeared on page A5 of the Albuquerque Journal
“They will be cruising by at 50-60 mph and then coast and then rev the engine super high, and it almost caused me to crash my bike it was so disturbing. I don’t know how the police can catch these guys. The motorcycles seem to be these Asian bikes that go very fast very quickly. The riders must get a kick out of scaring cyclists and pedestrians because it seems to be done on purpose.”
CG writes “Boy have you hit a pet peeve with this one.
“I can’t understand why this isn’t seen as an easily solvable problem. As a motorcycle owner, I know that all motorcycles come from the factory with EPA-certified mufflers, and it is against federal law to modify them so as to make them louder. It would seem simple to pull loud bikes over and make them prove that their mufflers are legal. There’s no need for decibel meters; the worst offenders are painfully obvious.
“I also agree with your correspondent’s opinion on noise and safety. If there’s a link there, then why do cruisers and sport bikes, which are most frequently modified, have worse accident records than other bikes? Let me just close by opining that those who feel the need to have loud pipes might be suffering from equipment inadequacies of another type.”
And finally James Steeves emails “A few years ago… I was one of the volunteers at the Seal Beach, Calif., police department … a small community of 24,000 by the ocean south of Los Angeles.
“One day our orientation was given by Joe Something. Joe was the chief of the five-man motorcycle unit. He was, needless to say, a biker. At the Q&A point I asked why the cops in Seal Beach didn’t do something about the motorcycles that passed through the town on the Pacific Coast Highway. People at sidewalk cafes along the PCH had to suspend conversation when a group of bikes approached … Three or four bikes, all with either no mufflers or modified ones, can damned near shatter windows, and it wasn’t unusual to see 10 or more bikes apparently traveling in a pack.
“Anyway Joe said that, years ago they used to stop bikers and issue a provisional ticket. This required a biker to restore his pipes to factory specs and return to the Seal Beach P.D. within a certain period to show they had complied with the law in order to have their ticket rescinded. Joe said the bikers would do that and then change their pipes back the same day to the racket makers that got them in trouble with the SBPD. So, Joe said, we accomplished nothing.
“… I decided not to push it but, as I thought of it later, I realized what utter nonsense it was that nothing would be accomplished by issuing a provisional ticket. In fact, a lot would be accomplished. If a biker from, say 35 miles down the coast, had to restore his bike to factory specs and return to the SBPD to get the ticket rescinded, he’d have to take time off work and make a 70-mile round-trip on a weekday to Seal Beach to get it done. And if the SBPD kept a record showing that a particular dude had done it before, the ticket issued would not be a provisional one.
“Later, as I thought about it, I realized that it shouldn’t have been surprising that Joe thought that, essentially, no police action was appropriate because Joe, though a motorcycle cop, was also a biker!”
— This article appeared on page A5 of the Albuquerque Journal
