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I can’t wait for electric motorbikes to be more diverse and advanced. I used to be a “my loud exhaust helps me to be seen” kinda guy. Until one day, sat in sta
by CraigJPerry 5y ago
I can’t wait for electric motorbikes to be more diverse and advanced.
I used to be a “my loud exhaust helps me to be seen” kinda guy. Until one day, sat in standstill traffic in my car on the M74 motorway just outside Glasgow, a rider on a BMW S1000XR, with the same loud exhaust as on mine, filtered past the window and I didn’t hear him until he was level with my rear passenger door.
Exhausts sound great, i love the sound of a nice engine, it’s utterly intoxicating but it turns out that modern insulated cars block out the noise too well to make them useful as an awareness tool.
So, i’m fine with a silent electric bike from a safety point of view. The exhaust noise was a false comfort blanket that deserves no faith put in it as a device to be better seen on the road.
- Negitivefrags 5y ago> “my loud exhaust helps me to be seen” People are very good at justifying thier anti-social behaviour to themselves.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- hellbannedguy 5y agoThere are scumbags out their whom will drop ball bearings out there vechicle on bikers they don't like. I friend whom told me about two incidents. I will never understand that behavior. In my life, the loud sound of a bike is my least concern. Plus, in my passive aggressive wealthy county, a loud bike is a F---you to my phony liberal hypocritical neighbors.
- ianai 5y agoYou should be treating people like people-not limited terms like “liberal“, “conservative”, or anything else. People are people. Ends unto themselves. Not means to an end, such as whatever calling someone liberal allows you to do and feel.
- NikolaNovak 5y agoA loud bike has the benefit of being a giant "f you, I'm an antisocial idiot" to pretty much all the innocent passerbies, race colour gender political affiliation OS preference aside :). It shows to others exactly what your post does so succinctly.
- EE84M3i 5y agoThat was my interpretation at first too, but their anecdote about being heard from inside a car leads me to believe they're talking about cars seeing/hearing them on the road for safety reasons.
- tartoran 5y agoIs that the reason they rev up their engines to the breaking point while standing in traffic?
- FlyingSaucer 5y agoThat's the biggest annoyance in my eyes. As a motorcyclist, i think its ok for the engine to make some noise (not counting the obnoxious cruisers or bike with some aftermarket exhausts), but there is truly no reason to rev up hard while sitting in traffic or in a slow central streets.
- greyhound 5y agoAlso, the "utterly intoxicating" sound is often forced onto others without their consent. Like playing your music through a loudspeaker in a public place. So yeah, go electric!
- Aachen 5y ago> Like playing your music through a loudspeaker in a public place. You're in luck, that's exactly what electric cars will do instead of being quiet!
- goldenkey 5y agoSome of them have a sound so that pedestrians can hear them coming. It isn't ridiculously loud - and if you wanted to silence it, you could easily make some modifications. I doubt silencing an EV would be legal though.
- marmaduke 5y agoIt’s a scifi low drone noise though, just enough to notice, it’s not annoying at all.
- abecedarius 5y agoWhen you're hard of hearing like me, traffic noise makes conversation impossible just about everywhere inside a city. Electric vehicles might have fixed this, if the solution were not being banned. That is intensely annoying. (If not outside, you can try chatting inside. But public meeting places inside are almost all noisy too: if not crowded enough to be noisy, most will add music or TV to compensate.)
- marmaduke 5y agoHave you heard the EV noise though? In France there are a lot of Renault Zoe around, and the noise is much softer, narrower band (which might help not mask vocal frequency band) than a gas engine. To be honest, I’m grateful, otherwise I’d cross in front of one as a pedestrian or cyclist. I’d even like to see the front of city buses with some noise since, with the engine in the back, you just hear them whoosh past when they barely miss you.
- Anonymous4272 5y agoThey may use Toyota's speaker thing that emits a sound at low speeds, which was specifically created to reduce noise pollution.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- bbarn 5y agoYeah, your loud pipes don't help the fact that most people can't handle driving without intentionally distracting themselves with music, apps, or phone calls. Driving a car is too easy a task and requires just enough focus that people go on mental autopilot and ignore outliers like motorcycles and bicycles.
- bellazeus 5y agoUnless one trains oneself to notice them (or if one has an affinity to them due to being an enthusiast), two wheeled vehicles are a lot harder to notice while driving in a car.
- jacquesm 5y agoAs well as everybody who is not currently in traffic that also gets to 'enjoy' your loud exhaust. And needlessly revving the engine when standing still is also probably in some way related to traffic safety.
- terminalserver 5y agoThis is a very strange justification for having an obnoxiously loud vehicle. If you want to be seen wearing bright leds.
- mod 5y agoIt's not strange, it's exceedingly common in the motorcycle community. I don't have loud pipes but I think it could help in blind spots, that's about it. I just don't ride in blind spots instead.
- henearkr 5y agoThat should not be necessary. Bicycles don't need it, do they? Moreover, with modern blind spot cameras, automatic collision avoidance systems (which will probably, cheaply, equip every electric car), I hope these concerns will completely fade away.
- mschuster91 5y ago> Bicycles don't need it, do they? The traffic fatalities of bicyclists in cities would like a word with you...
- henearkr 5y agoI believe the solution is not loud noises. There are plenty of other options.
- ryukafalz 5y agoMost importantly, slowing down cars in residential or dense areas. The slower vehicle traffic is moving, the less likely that a collision will be fatal. (By a lot!)
- benhurmarcel 5y agoAnd yet if I permanently had a siren on my bicycle you’d think I’d be an asshole.
- hamoid 5y agoTo me the sound of those big bikes is a form of terrorism. They rise my blood pressure, increase stress levels and make me hate. Try living somewhere where every 20 minutes such bikes make the windows of your flat shake and you can't hear your TV or your partner talking until the bike is gone. Why do I have to suffer this every day of my life? I can't wait until the ICE is part of our primitive past.
- bayindirh 5y agoI understand that performance engines need unobstructed exhausts up to a certain point, but pipes tuned to amplify this sound is distracting at best, damaging your ears at worst. I don't like them. They become hazardous in tunnels, underpasses and other closed spaces. Ultra loud pipes kill my ears' locating capabilities and I can't mentally place the motorcycle to the correct place so I won't unintentionally endanger it. The place I live has many more motorcycles in recent years and they drive dangerously to save time (delivery guys), and it makes my life as a car driver much more harder. If you always drive in my blind spots and have loud pipes to blind my ears, I cannot see you, even if I very hard to try. So please be a little more considerate.
- VBprogrammer 5y agoI don't know what to tell you, I'm normally a pretty sensible type. Stick to the speed limits, have a small sensible car etc. But on a motorbike the noise of the exhaust while riding a motorcycle is intoxicating!
- goldenkey 5y agoInhaling the exhaust is intoxicating too. Not all of us want to destroy our lives for cheap thrills. https://youtu.be/eEdf0R5ypsg https://youtu.be/eEdf0R5ypsg https://youtu.be/GO6guuJtPkM https://youtu.be/GO6guuJtPkM
- NikolaNovak 5y agoAbsolutely. To you. Other 10,000 people you pass be dammed.
- names_are_hard 5y agoI'd love a silent bike with tons of torque. I'm not looking forward to the day where my bike phones home to the manufacturer, isn't repairable by an amateur in a garage, or comes with DRM. Unfortunately I think both those are inevitable. For now I'll keep riding my 15-year old carburetor bike with no rider aids. Speaking of rider aids, I sometimes wonder where the balance is between safety and fun. I think the sport is only interesting if it's challenging, so a self driving motorcycle doesn't seem like it's good for anything other than transportation. What about TCS? ABS? Slipper clutches?
- 0_____0 5y agoCertainly there's a lot of skill to riding a motorcycle that TCS/ABS/Slippers (and displacement!) do not replace. I love that aspect of motorcycles. It's pretty amazing to be riding at your peak performance in B group on the track on a 650 and have someone on a Ninja 300 blow by you on an inside line at 20-30 seconds faster pace than you.
- foobiekr 5y agoPublic roads aren’t really a sporting arena, so probably actual sports use will continue in an appropriate venue.
- jacobolus 5y ago> Exhausts sound great, i love the sound of a nice engine, it’s utterly intoxicating Loud motorcycle engines are the sound of the world’s hugest assholes making their giant fart in the public’s face.
- dorchadas 5y agoRight up there with truck ones. We got one who drives by our house every night at around 9:30 and it's so freaking loud the windows shake.
- erikbye 5y agoI think the only asshole here is you. You can enjoy riding HD without being an asshole. Big engines are loud, they need to breathe. People like you are the ones who promote cancel culture. Anything that is of slight annoyance to you must be banned. No tolerance.
- CRConrad 5y ago> Big engines are loud, they need to breathe. Oh, bullshit: There are lots of even bigger engines that are less loud. Compare that .75-l Honda or 1.5-l Harley-Davidson against, say, a 6-liter Mercedes-Benz. Q.E.D. The assholes are those who come up with these feeble excuses for their antisocial behaviour.
- jacobolus 5y ago> Big engines are loud, they need to breathe Exactly. Motorcycle assholes should take their deafening fart sounds somewhere 20 miles away from human or animal habitation. Maybe to a desolate salt flat or something. The bikes that violate vehicular noise laws should be confiscated and scrapped at the owner’s expense, and their riders’ motorcycle licenses revoked. > slight annoyance Subjecting your innocent neighbors to aural assault is a sadistic crime, not a slightly annoying hobby.
- erikbye 5y agoDeafening? The only one who will suffer hearing damage is the rider. Next time get your decibel meter out and you will probably find you are just as offended by bikes within the legal limit. You sound like that type of person. Probably live a very sheltered life with no real problems.
- NikolaNovak 5y agoI owned ride 6-7 different motorcycles, and I believe there's a special place in hell for those who put on loud aftermarket exhausts. Sure, it sounds nice to them. It shows an astonishing disregard to thousands of other people they impact daily. Let alone your next 10 neighbour houses who put up with it on consistent basis. ... :O There's no increased safety factor - there's no real location or distance clue such loud exhausts provide and in my experience they only stress and antagonize other drivers :-/
- martyvis 5y agoI obviously don't talk to enough bikers. This is the first timeI have even heard the idea, I'm 57 and certainly have known a lot of books riders, that people like loud bikes because they think it makes them safer.
- pjmlp 5y agoI never heard safety being ever related to it, only being the motorbike version of tuning culture.
- rlonstein 5y agoMy reply to that (as a motorcyclist of 30+ years) is, "If loud pipes save lives, imagine what learning to ride that thing would do?"
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- snarfy 5y agoWe make it illegal to eat or use cell phones while driving because distracted driving is dangerous, yet it's ok to rattle everyone's windows with your Harley. Even if somehow it is 'safer' for the biker it's definitely not for everyone else.
- tapland 5y ago
- marmaduke 5y ago> Exhausts sound great For kids walking to school, people trying to nap, etc, loud exhaust is terrible on the ears and stressful in general. Electric bikes aren’t silent, but the whining noise is much less stressful than combustion engine noise.
- DandyDev 5y agoTo me, loud motor cycles seem like a sign of compensating for small genitals. Like many others in this thread, those loud sounds induce a huge amount of physical and mental stress.
- ornornor 5y ago> “my loud exhaust helps me to be seen” It’s obnoxious and nothing else. Our cities and roads are already polluted enough as it is without the rest of the world having to suffer eardrum splitting motorbike exhausts that shake the whole building.
- jray 5y agoAll people who make noise with their motorbikes deserve a slow and painful death.
- layoutIfNeeded 5y agohttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ylhsbfQTPDQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ylhsbfQTPDQ
- tlb 5y agoBikes with loud exhaust all have the exhaust pointing out the back. If you want to be heard coming instead of going, you should add a U-bend just behind the muffler so the exhaust sound is projected forward.
- detritus 5y agoThank Goodness for your change of heart. Personally I am in favour of the judicious and summary execution of the death penalty for people who ride incredibly loud motorbikes in built up and residential environments... .
- annoyingnoob 5y agoI've never been a fan of 'loud pipes save lives'. Its your riding skill that is going to save your life, your ability to anticipate the actions of others.
- thefourthchime 5y ago“Loud pipes save lives” is just like “the best way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun”. It sounds good, but falls apart it the real world.
- pier25 5y agoLoud motorbikes should be forbidden. Period.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- sgt 5y agoI have two motorcycles, a BMW R1200GS with an Akrapovic slip-on exhaust which sounds fantastic but isn't particularly loud. It came with the bike new from BMW so I think that is the reason. The second bike I have is a fire breathing KTM 300 two-stroke enduro which not only sounds loud but also probably pollutes like like a truck. If I ride it directly from my house I sometimes just freewheel the first 50-100 m down the hill before I start it. It's a bit embarrassing and I wish it would be a bit quieter. I'm looking into a FMF pipe that is quieter.
- C19is20 5y agoAs a car motorbiker and cyclist...silent objects coming up on me are scary. Very scary. Thankfully the last few tesle that came 'close' were so much more loud than I was expecting, I was pleasantly surprised. Silence may be golden, but also may be not.
- Gibbon1 5y ago> “my loud exhaust helps me to be seen” Friend of mine turned in front of a motorcyclist who had loud pipes and was going about 50 in a 25 mph zone. He was complaining the whole time the EMT's were loading him into the ambulance that my friend was at fault because he had loud pipes. I don't ride but have nothing against motorcyclists. But I wish there was some sort of tracking device that would warn me when they are around. Last point something my parents warned me about when learning to drive. Not everyone has great eyesight or hearing, especially older people. Also older people often have limited neck mobility.
- eric_h 5y agoHad a similar experience the other day on the highway. Traffic was doing ~85mph so I was too and got passed on both sides within inches of my side mirrors by a group of 8 or so people on racing bikes with loud exhausts doing at least 100mph. I didn't hear them/notice them until they were basically in my blind spots, it was very unsettling. I also suspect that the bulk of exhaust noise is projected to the rear of the vehicle anyway, which makes it not especially useful as a "safety" feature if you are unsafely driving considerably faster than and weaving through traffic.
- Valakas_ 5y agoOh you were seen alright. Just not on a positive way. I have constant noisy motorbikes passing in front of my building and often feel like shooting one of their tires because of the stress of having to deal with this constant noise. If exhausts sound great, go to the country side and listen to it, but don't force others to.
- Melting_Harps 5y ago> So, i’m fine with a silent electric bike from a safety point of view. The exhaust noise was a false comfort blanket that deserves no faith put in it as a device to be better seen on the road. How many years have you ridden on the street, I can't count the amount of times I''ve been cut off but a blip on my SC project on a fireblade made people go back into their lane or at least made them aware of me lane splitting in just the last 5 months of riding street again in CA. Maybe Ireland is different, but I think you have a better argument relying on automated cars saving you then no longer surviving due to a loud pipe. Then again, Teslas seem to give way despite it's best in class monitoring system. I'm pretty much over street riding a SS on the street is absurd because of the speeds and ositions you have to be in to ride it adequately to be responsive, so I can't derive much enjoyment of it to justify the risk. Personally speaking if they decided to build a dedicated Motorcycle lane between at the very edge of the last lane I think that is the real solution, you don't need much more space to do it either.