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Harley’s are terrible motorcycles with severe safety compromising design flaws made for stylistic reasons — the argument that they should be made loud for real

Harley’s are terrible motorcycles with severe safety compromising design flaws made for stylistic reasons — the argument that they should be made loud for real safety reasons employs deeply flawed reasoning. I rode a (non Harley, well engineered) motorcycle for years and always thought the claim that you needed to make your bike loud to enhance perception was bollocks. The right answer is to always ride with the awareness that people can’t/don’t see you and plan lane position accordingly.

slap 8y ago
> severe safety compromising design flaws made for stylistic reason Could you explain what exactly ?
- breatheoften 8y ago
  People buy Harley’s for the twin cam engine which vibrates a lot and “if you have to ask why this is good then you wouldn’t understand”. The marketing for Harley’s is very much about buying into “worse is better” for “cool” factor — and for social signaling that you might know how to turn your own wrenches. The joke is that Harley owners spend more time in the garage with their bikes than riding them. They require a lot of maintenance to keep running. From a risk perspective, the onerously frequent maintenance requirements increase the chance of a mechanic introduced error having negative safety outcomes. The fact that every owner basically “has” to work on the bikes rather extensively means that they are more likely in general to be worked on by not so qualified mechanics. The extensive customization culture surrounding the bikes also comes with a lot of really easy ways for safety compromising designs to be introduced via ill thought out customization. These may seem like small factors but all of them represent much more real risks than the imagined safety benefit that might come by making your bike excessively loud. Someone telling you to ride a Harley and also telling you to make it loud for safety is not giving good safety advice — to maximize safe riding you should never try to lower the responsibility of the rider to be aware of other drivers not seeing them - you can’t make yourself more visible by being loud and shouldn’t encourage someone to think this will work and thereby encourage them to not proactively defend themselves from a driver who might not see them. There are other safety relevant issues with the bike design — notoriously bad brakes and gearboxes, poor suspension, heavy with a low center of gravity that makes turning a relatively higher effort activity for shorter riders and generally makes recovery from problem scenarios more difficult, the “Harley wobble” (yes wobble can happen with other bikes but it tends to be more severe with Harley’s) ... It’s probably also worth pointing out that there have been something like 4 large recalls in the last 5 years for clutch problems that can lead to sudden brake failure. Also, the twin cam engine design is inherently not long lasting with many failure modes which means breakdowns are common (engine failure/fluid leaks are not generally conducive to safety).
  - dsfyu404ed 8y ago
    I fully agree that they're shitty bikes (for the money, everything is relative to cost obviously) but I'm not sure it matters when it comes to safety. Mechanical failure/vehicle performance is still basically a rounding error compared to humans being dumb when it comes to causes of crashes.
  - dugditches 8y ago
    If you think more modern Harley's(twin cams, evolutions)are unreliable I guess you'd say the older ones didn't run at all. The fact something can vibrate and shake so much and leave the Stealership with rattling apart is a feat of engineering. With cam tensioners changed you'll get 100k out of a twincam before needing work with just oil and tires(and whatever parts rattle off). Harley's trying to innovate(electric bikes/scooters, dual sport). Problem is their consumer base is stuck in past/vanishing. Some people use fountain pens instead of more modern pens, even though they might be more inconvenient/expensive. While I only own Japanese bikes now, I can't deny there is a 'feeling' of riding a Harley.
- mikestew 8y ago
  Sibling comment has good points. My go-to was years back when HD put a single disc with a single piston caliper up front. Anything Japanese at that point put two discs, usually multiple pistons. Some sport bikes were running monster six piston calipers. And there’s that fat-ass Harley hauling it’s bulk down with that one scrawny disc and anemic caliper. ‘cuz, you know, style. Always seemed like a lawsuit waiting to happen. Can you imagine a car manufacturer saying, “the braking system is not even close to state-of-the-art because it wouldn’t look good”?
CompelTechnic 8y ago
You are making two false dichotomies. Even if Harley's have other safety compromises, loud pipes can make them safer. Even if you ride with awareness, loud pipes can make you safer. There is generally a lack of hard evidence, but it only makes sense that they would to me. It can simultaneously be true that loud pipes save lives and loud pipes annoy people; whether the tradeoff is worth it to you is the real question.
- RankingMember 8y ago
  Loud pipes direct sound out and back, so anyone ahead of you, e.g. at an intersection or in oncoming traffic, still isn't going to hear you. "Loud pipes save lives" has never been proven by any data. Decent article/rant about this saying: https://www.revzilla.com/common-tread/stop-saying-loud-pipes-save-lives https://www.revzilla.com/common-tread/stop-saying-loud-pipes...
- mikestew 8y ago
  There is generally a lack of hard evidence, but it only makes sense that they would to me. The lack of hard evidence should be your first clue, because you know the loud pipes crowd would crow to sunset if there were even the slightest shred of evidence. But it “makes sense”, does it? How many things did we think we knew because it “makes sense” until one day, “turns out...”? So one must first establish that loud pipes save lives. And the onus is on the one making that claim.
swebs 8y ago
By that logic, wearing a helmet is also "deeply flawed reasoning"
- breatheoften 8y ago
  I don’t think this is true at all — helmets are very useful safety equipment when motorcycle riding. Protection from bugs and airborne rocks is very real — I had some rides where I had to pull over and clean my helmet visor to see through all the grasshopper guts I’d hit — flying objects will hit you and very likely cause an accident or at least a lot of discomfort if you have no face protection. Helmets are worth it on those points alone even if you discard the (very real, very substantiated) potential to turn fatal impacts into survivable impacts. That said — wearing a helmet can cause one to take more risks out of a belief in greater survivability odds. On the track in full safety gear — the odds of crash survival really can be high enough to justify the extra risk taking mentality — loud pipes don’t boost survivability to anything remotely the same degree as helmets — in my opinion it’s very likely that someone who genuinely (and mistakenly) believes their loud pipes make them more perceivable will allow that belief to influence their actions and be very likely to drive less defensely. On the general topic of helmets increasing risk taking — I actually do think this belief can lead to meaningful increase in chance of mistakes in other contexts. I’m an avid rock climber — a very small percentage of climbers always wear a helmet but most only wear one when doing climbs with significant amount of loose rock. The main safety use of a helmet when climbing is protection from falling rocks or other objects — there are some rare circumstances when a helmet could protect you when you fall but those are quite unusual — generally only happen when you get flipped upside which usually only happens when you mismanage the rope position. It’s _possible_ the helmet could help protect from a climbing fall but much better protection is to correctly manage rope position which is necessary, typically straightforward, and also something you are unlikely to do wrong when climbing at your level. If you put a helmet on and suddenly feel “able” to take more risks when climbing you are making a big mistake — the very marginal extra fall safety of the helmet is not worth increasing your risk taking at all — but it can often be hard to avoid increase to risk taking even when you are aware the increase is not justified. In my opinion, the helmet is not worth making this trade off (except in areas with lots of risk of rockfall or dropped gear from parties above).

slap 8y ago

> severe safety compromising design flaws made for stylistic reason Could you explain what exactly ?

breatheoften 8y ago
People buy Harley’s for the twin cam engine which vibrates a lot and “if you have to ask why this is good then you wouldn’t understand”. The marketing for Harley’s is very much about buying into “worse is better” for “cool” factor — and for social signaling that you might know how to turn your own wrenches. The joke is that Harley owners spend more time in the garage with their bikes than riding them. They require a lot of maintenance to keep running. From a risk perspective, the onerously frequent maintenance requirements increase the chance of a mechanic introduced error having negative safety outcomes. The fact that every owner basically “has” to work on the bikes rather extensively means that they are more likely in general to be worked on by not so qualified mechanics. The extensive customization culture surrounding the bikes also comes with a lot of really easy ways for safety compromising designs to be introduced via ill thought out customization. These may seem like small factors but all of them represent much more real risks than the imagined safety benefit that might come by making your bike excessively loud. Someone telling you to ride a Harley and also telling you to make it loud for safety is not giving good safety advice — to maximize safe riding you should never try to lower the responsibility of the rider to be aware of other drivers not seeing them - you can’t make yourself more visible by being loud and shouldn’t encourage someone to think this will work and thereby encourage them to not proactively defend themselves from a driver who might not see them. There are other safety relevant issues with the bike design — notoriously bad brakes and gearboxes, poor suspension, heavy with a low center of gravity that makes turning a relatively higher effort activity for shorter riders and generally makes recovery from problem scenarios more difficult, the “Harley wobble” (yes wobble can happen with other bikes but it tends to be more severe with Harley’s) ... It’s probably also worth pointing out that there have been something like 4 large recalls in the last 5 years for clutch problems that can lead to sudden brake failure. Also, the twin cam engine design is inherently not long lasting with many failure modes which means breakdowns are common (engine failure/fluid leaks are not generally conducive to safety).
- dsfyu404ed 8y ago
  I fully agree that they're shitty bikes (for the money, everything is relative to cost obviously) but I'm not sure it matters when it comes to safety. Mechanical failure/vehicle performance is still basically a rounding error compared to humans being dumb when it comes to causes of crashes.
- dugditches 8y ago
  If you think more modern Harley's(twin cams, evolutions)are unreliable I guess you'd say the older ones didn't run at all. The fact something can vibrate and shake so much and leave the Stealership with rattling apart is a feat of engineering. With cam tensioners changed you'll get 100k out of a twincam before needing work with just oil and tires(and whatever parts rattle off). Harley's trying to innovate(electric bikes/scooters, dual sport). Problem is their consumer base is stuck in past/vanishing. Some people use fountain pens instead of more modern pens, even though they might be more inconvenient/expensive. While I only own Japanese bikes now, I can't deny there is a 'feeling' of riding a Harley.
mikestew 8y ago
Sibling comment has good points. My go-to was years back when HD put a single disc with a single piston caliper up front. Anything Japanese at that point put two discs, usually multiple pistons. Some sport bikes were running monster six piston calipers. And there’s that fat-ass Harley hauling it’s bulk down with that one scrawny disc and anemic caliper. ‘cuz, you know, style. Always seemed like a lawsuit waiting to happen. Can you imagine a car manufacturer saying, “the braking system is not even close to state-of-the-art because it wouldn’t look good”?

CompelTechnic 8y ago

You are making two false dichotomies. Even if Harley's have other safety compromises, loud pipes can make them safer. Even if you ride with awareness, loud pipes can make you safer. There is generally a lack of hard evidence, but it only makes sense that they would to me. It can simultaneously be true that loud pipes save lives and loud pipes annoy people; whether the tradeoff is worth it to you is the real question.

RankingMember 8y ago
Loud pipes direct sound out and back, so anyone ahead of you, e.g. at an intersection or in oncoming traffic, still isn't going to hear you. "Loud pipes save lives" has never been proven by any data. Decent article/rant about this saying: https://www.revzilla.com/common-tread/stop-saying-loud-pipes-save-lives https://www.revzilla.com/common-tread/stop-saying-loud-pipes...
mikestew 8y ago
There is generally a lack of hard evidence, but it only makes sense that they would to me. The lack of hard evidence should be your first clue, because you know the loud pipes crowd would crow to sunset if there were even the slightest shred of evidence. But it “makes sense”, does it? How many things did we think we knew because it “makes sense” until one day, “turns out...”? So one must first establish that loud pipes save lives. And the onus is on the one making that claim.

swebs 8y ago

By that logic, wearing a helmet is also "deeply flawed reasoning"

breatheoften 8y ago
I don’t think this is true at all — helmets are very useful safety equipment when motorcycle riding. Protection from bugs and airborne rocks is very real — I had some rides where I had to pull over and clean my helmet visor to see through all the grasshopper guts I’d hit — flying objects will hit you and very likely cause an accident or at least a lot of discomfort if you have no face protection. Helmets are worth it on those points alone even if you discard the (very real, very substantiated) potential to turn fatal impacts into survivable impacts. That said — wearing a helmet can cause one to take more risks out of a belief in greater survivability odds. On the track in full safety gear — the odds of crash survival really can be high enough to justify the extra risk taking mentality — loud pipes don’t boost survivability to anything remotely the same degree as helmets — in my opinion it’s very likely that someone who genuinely (and mistakenly) believes their loud pipes make them more perceivable will allow that belief to influence their actions and be very likely to drive less defensely. On the general topic of helmets increasing risk taking — I actually do think this belief can lead to meaningful increase in chance of mistakes in other contexts. I’m an avid rock climber — a very small percentage of climbers always wear a helmet but most only wear one when doing climbs with significant amount of loose rock. The main safety use of a helmet when climbing is protection from falling rocks or other objects — there are some rare circumstances when a helmet could protect you when you fall but those are quite unusual — generally only happen when you get flipped upside which usually only happens when you mismanage the rope position. It’s _possible_ the helmet could help protect from a climbing fall but much better protection is to correctly manage rope position which is necessary, typically straightforward, and also something you are unlikely to do wrong when climbing at your level. If you put a helmet on and suddenly feel “able” to take more risks when climbing you are making a big mistake — the very marginal extra fall safety of the helmet is not worth increasing your risk taking at all — but it can often be hard to avoid increase to risk taking even when you are aware the increase is not justified. In my opinion, the helmet is not worth making this trade off (except in areas with lots of risk of rockfall or dropped gear from parties above).