I always assumed that the point of loud vehicles was to assert dominance by being an asshole. If people are annoyed and upset then it is working exactly as intended. You have provoked an emotion that fuels your ego and image of yourself as a bad ass that doesn't care about other people.
This explains a lot of modern day behaviour, thanks for pointing out what should have been obvious. Yet here I have been all these years thinking these people didn't realise what they were doing.
I love this comment! I live out in country and it seems like every jackass with a Harley has to add some noise pollution just so they enjoy the freedom of the open road.
No not necessarily by being an asshole. By being loud. Animals do it too like lions they have a mighty roar. But they only roar when they are afraid. No? Why would they otherwise roar?
you're right, they don't do it to be an asshole. they do, however, do it to feel like a badass, and they like feeling like a badass because they're an asshole.
if you start looking for it, or rather, start understanding that it's there, you will soon see an alarming number of people doing things solely because it makes them feel like a badass. it is 100% of the entire reason to live, in some people.
I suspect you are partially correct, they will roar out of fear to try to scare of the other guy, but after a successful take down, they'll also roar to show their dominance, in order to assert their position.
I’ve always said that an exhaust should only be as loud as the vehicle or motorcycle is fast. I put exhausts on my vehicles and motorcycles that free the flow of air which makes the engine (an air pump) perform better. I never put one on a slow vehicle just to make it louder. Consider this the same as overclocking a cpu. You are burning up more electricity than you “need” to, all for your own personal greed or need for speed? The door swings both ways.
>>"I put exhausts on my vehicles and motorcycles that free the flow of air which makes the engine (an air pump) perform better"
As I mentioned in other thread
1. What proportion of people with straight pipes take them on a track or engage in competitive endeavour
2. What proportion take advanced classes and have the skillset to take advantage of increase performance
3. What proportion put their bike on a dyno before and after to have a foggiest clue if straight pipe does anything
4. What proportion of them tunes the rest of their bike to take advantage of new pipe
5. For how many loud cruisers is performance in any way even remotely an actual consideration? You don't buy a cruiser for speed.
Finally, you can get high flow pipes which are quiet. But that's not really the point is it ;)
I actually respect people who say "I got it because it's loud and cool and gives me a rush" because they're at least honest a*oles, more than 98% of people who claim its for performance but don't have a clue - they're fooling themselves as much as others :-/
Wow, downvoted into obscurity despite factual basis. Overclocking can in fact produce EMI.
I realize that audible noise is very readily recognized as harmful. It’s been studied and proven to be harmful, as have other forms of pollution. I think EMI affects less people directly but it’s still noise.
I think you're down voted due to ridiculousness / perceived intellectual dishonesty.
You're putting the argument that overclocking a CPU, due to increased impact, is analogous to putting a straight pipe on a Harley.
I would imagine that difference is sufficient number of orders of magnitude different to be a fundamentally ignorable comparison, and obviously so.
A loud pipe has an immediate and continuous demonstrable negative impact on hundreds and thousands of people per trip.
You would need to show me some reaaally good studies to show that increased (not just baseline) EMI of overclocking is even readily detectable through the faradey cage of computer case and then three houses down the road, and distinguishable in the noise of street transformers, Fridges, laser printers, etc.
If it affects 1% of the population instead of 50% then it’s far more likely to be dismissed.
Also, given other similar noise, adding a little more doesn’t seem like an issue.
None of this is to say that two stroke motors and loud vehicles don’t get on my nerves. Rather, we all have more in common than we think we do.
I used to be considered “sensitive” because I hated all of the latent noise. I feel like I would be considered “reasonable” based on this thread which is now backed by studies showing noise and environmental pollution as having long-term, negative side-effects.
On a technical note, Faraday cages are much better at protecting receiving electronics from outside signals than the other way around. Signals have an easier time leaving a Faraday cage than entering.
>If it affects 1% of the population instead of 50% then it’s far more likely to be dismissed.
I wouldn't call it insight, I'd call it prioritization; but perhaps more to the point, you've provided no evidence whatsoever that overclocking a CPU will affect any proportion of population whatsoever (not 50%, not 1%, not 0.01%), at any distance, in any circumstance. And remember, we're not even saying "whether a computer emits EMI". The claim put forward is that overclocking a PC, say from 3ghz to 3.3ghz, has detectable enough negative impact on people other than the owner / in other households, to be part of this discussion.
Certainly, I currently do not believe so and am dismissing your argument for that reason. You are welcome and indeed encouraged to persuade me otherwise :)
Me as well, until I bought Forza Horizon and discovered my car had a turbo..
I don't dispute that some loud exhausts are the result of exactly what you describe, but also many are motorheads who have less restrictive exhaust systems for performance reasons or just to enjoy their vehicle (unfortunately sometimes at the expense of other peoples hearing)
I have this same theory with road cyclists. I have no problem with someone bicycling to get to work but there are many other types of exercise that don't involve blocking traffic by making other drivers terrified to hit you. It's like doing jumping jacks at a gun range. There must be a dominance factor at play.
Homie, it has nothing to do with you or your work commute. Cyclists have every legal right to be on the road as a car and if a shoulder lane isn’t safe enough to cycle on then it’s safest and recommended and the law to take up a whole lane to ensure assholes like you don’t risk their safety/lives by trying to squeeze past them in the same lane. Best to just treat them as a car and try to practice patience.
Seconded, and thank you for pointing that out. Apologies for the terrible juju to everybody who read that. Nothing good comes out of outbursts like that, especially on the internet.
Cars are usually more expensive than bycicles and inconvenience people too.
Don't get me wrong, I've got both a car and a bicycle, not 100% for road cycling but count it as if it was (it's a gravel bike.)
For me cycling beats running 100-0. I can easily pedal 100+ km but I can't run 100 meters, too tiresome. Furthermore I see 100 km of the world vs a small area around my home.
Ultimately it's all subjective. Each of us likes something different and it's OK.
It is fine to speculate, but "must" is a strong assumption. Your analogy is also based on flawed data. Yes, when riding on streets there is a chance of getting killed, but getting regular exercise reduces your chance of dying for other reasons. There are many studies that demonstrate this. Here is one:
Tell me what you think the benefit:risk ratio is of doing jumping jacks at a gun range.
I have worked from home for a long time, but 15+ years ago I commuted by bike about 12 miles each way three times a week when the weather was good. Dominance had nothing to do with my choice to bike there.
I could ride there by bike in 45 minutes, or I could drive there in 25 minutes (lots of stop and go). Same on the return trip. My mental calculus was I got 90 minutes of exercise for an incremental time expense of 40 minutes. That I was also not polluting was a bonus.
The nearest accident I had ever was one day when I was on connector road that had recently been widened and hadn't yet picked up a lot of use. Despite there being no traffic at that moment, I've always 100% obeyed traffic laws, so I stood over my bike waiting for the red light to change. About 20 seconds into it a pickup truck came screeching to a stop just about five feet behind me - he literally locked the tires and left skid marks. Guess what his reaction was: to shout and scream to the point of spitting that I was lucky to be alive and that I wan an asshole for biking on the road. I still don't know if he saw me all along and it was a calculated dominance display, or if he was daydreaming and really did nearly cream me.
I know my opinion is unpopular. I just don't trust drivers enough to pay attention when they have 3-5k lbs more weight than I do. Much safer to run on the sidewalk and I don't bother anyone.
I don't have aftermarket pipes - but your post is clearly from perspective of someone who doesn't ride. Sound is an essential part of the riding thrill, riding my bike past 10k RPM gives me F1 sound and insane rush. I suspect riding an electric motorcycle would be much less thrilling that way and make me more aware that I'm on a suicide machine.
I regularly get small children approach me on motorcycle and want to pull the throttle, then get scared, then want to do it again, there's something primal about that, it's (mostly) not about other people.
As I said (GP here) - I rode motorcycles since 2008; I'll grant you that sound is absolutely part of the fun - but loud aftermarket exhausts, detonating straight pipes, etc which are the subject of the topic here -- I feel the world's balance is overwhelmingly on the negative in the "joy to self" vs "average impact to others".
I understand many people put the aftermarket pipes "for themselves", at least consciously, or at least claim so - but I feel at best, it's a degree of self-centerdness to not realize impact on others. I see it on Subaru forums too - fellow WRX/STi owners moaning about their neighbour's complaints and cops stopping them and people giving them dirty looks etc etc - obliviously blind that it was themselves who brought in on by installing ridiculous loud exhausts. A factory exhaust on my bikes gave me plenty of thrill, and while I did put a high-flow cat on my Scoobie, I searched for an exhaust with nice sound but quieter actual dBs than stock. Few things are B&W - but there is a loudness at which point it really really is about others.
(note that when you say "past 10k RPM", it sounds like you likely have a sportsbike, and as you say a stock one; those can be loud at high revs, but generally speaking the loudest bikes in my experience tend to be modified cruisers and wanna-be Harleys.
Also note that rider may not always get straight opinions from friends, depending who wants to fight what battle when - e.g. last summer, a rider was revving his throttle at a friends' cottage and boasting about his aftermarket pipes; given we were both guests, I politely nodded and meandered away... but everything for the rest of the evening confirmed the image I formed the moment I heard his pipes :-/)
I'm not trying to defend anyone - I'm just saying that looking at it from the perspective of "they are just doing it to show off" etc. is not really my experience (there's some of that for sure)
I'm not a fan of aftermarket exhausts, stock one is plenty loud for me and doesn't disturb anyone while I'm riding normaly. I especially dislike the grandpa chopper bikes that sound like tanks, like you said my sports bike gets insane at >9k RPM - but I don't ride insane in populated areas.
I think we are likely indeed converging to a point of agreement.
Things are usually on a spectrum and not binary; I agree that part of the thrill of ride is the sensation - vibration, noise of wind and engine, gravity forces, etc - and certainly manufacturers of both performance bikes and cars frequently tune the engine and particularly exhaust for desired image and sound.
I still maintain though that there is a wrong side/portion of that spectrum, and that e.g. a straight pipe on a Harley does far more negative impact on others than positive impact (real or perceived performance, rush, etc) on the rider.
If you're knowingly annoying people for your own pleasure, I don't much care what your intentions are. You're either intentionally mean or too self centered to consider your actions effects on the people around you.
Or, more generously, just young and immature and not completely cognizant of the impact of your actions on others.
In a different lifetime I had a few bikes including a TL1000R that was just plain intoxicating to ride with aftermarket pipes.
There is no way in hell I could do that to my neighbors at this stage of my life, however, and I often cringe at the actions of my younger self. Nowadays, I refuse to even use gas powered garden tools for noise (and environmental) reasons.
I don't disagree with the conclusion but it's equally self centered to think someone is doing something just to annoy you - so if you just said "loud pipes annoy me" I have no problem with that statement, if you say "bikers are installing loud pipes to annoy me/others" well that's just wrong and I'm giving you insight into what the actuall motivation is.
Sure.. I get a kick out of twisting the throttle on my Yamaha a couple times but I totally disagree that it is an essential part of the experience. If you could sell me a completely silent but very powerful motorcycle I would buy it. And even if you are thrilled by the sound, there comes a point (when you put straight pipes on) where it clearly becomes less about whether the rider can hear their own bike and more about whether everyone else can. So As someone who has spend hundreds of thousands of kilometres on a motorcycle I totally agree with grandparent post here, once it gets to that point where you are changing your exhaust to make it louder, it out is mostly about egos and images.
IDK - I had a few biker friends (before I moved last time, pretty much stopped riding since my son was born, going to sell the bike any day now), they would use DB-killer but if we went off riding twisties they would pull it out and just enjoy the insanity. There was one guy who would ride without dbkiller all the time, he was a dick in general, so there's that.
I don’t ride, but I’ve often considered it as a hobby. Even still, I wish people who just really like noise would get themselves some headphones instead of disrupting everyone else, damaging their hearing, interrupting their (even indoor) conversations, waking sleeping children, etc. It’s incredibly selfish behavior and I can only imagine people who behave this way are compensating for something.
I almost buy the “loud pipes save lives” angle but if you need to deafen others to protect yourself maybe motorcycling just isn’t an institution worth keeping around. That said, I don’t think it needs to come to that.
Loud pipes argument is bullshit in my book, I've been riding for 5 years now and never had a traffic accident, defensive riding is the only way to be "safe" (you're never really safe on a bike, even a little gravel on the road can mean you end up in a coma), relying on other drivers having to notice you is a pointless gamble, just assume they aren't going to and drive accordingly. Also I notice people get startled by a loud bike approaching - and the last thing you want is to startle an insecure driver.
