PBRnr
2017-12-18 09:15:00 UTC
Time to break down the old saying into bits for my own interpretive analysis.
Loud pipes: likely aftermarket, significantly louder than stock, assumed to be clearly audible from a distance equal to or greater than the distance needed to brake to a halt
Save lives: survive an incident/accident regardless of degree of injuries sustained
When I read the above, I would answer "no." Disregarding all the social baggage associated with motorcycles and loud exhausts, it seems foolish to directly correlate a louder bike with incident survival. That being said, my understanding of how the saying is currently debated is that louder pipes provide the potential for generating greater driver awareness for the rider's presence and, thus, may help prevent some accidents from occurring.
Since becoming a father, I've become more aware of how great distraction can affect our brain's ability to multi-task, or rather, how limited our ability to truly multi-task is. If my son is focused on a task, I can sit there and repeat his name over and over again and his brain won't let him hear me. Only when I break his concentration with a hand on the shoulder will he snap his awareness back to what I'm about to say. Same goes for people texting at stop lights. They stop, make a mental note of when the light will turn green, get engrossed in the message content, and before they know it, everybody's driven off without them. With all the flashy indicators, GPS/phones/screens, sound damping technology, and growing trends in traffic congestion inside modern automobiles today, it's my opinion that loud pipes have a minimal impact on driver awareness for riders.
Early in my riding years, my bikes were all very quiet with stock exhausts and I always wondered if a louder exhaust would help me deal with the situations I found myself in where I attributed driver attention to be involved. After getting the SD, I started to reflexively try and utilize the throttle (as so many other urban riders do) to gain the attention of drivers. It became second nature to generously blip the throttle downshifting to intersections, rev a few times before the light changed, and have grand mal wrist seizures when lane splitting. I now think I was idiotically putting myself at greater danger because I was focused on using sound waves to try and change driver behavior. FFS, they're SOUND WAVES not tsunami waves. The same phenomenon happens when I try to use the horn (either in the car or on the bike). In situations needing quick evasive action, I always find myself struggling to stop/maneuver my vehicle while also laying on the horn/flashing high beams etc to "communicate" with the other driver. Other times, I find myself actually lamenting the fact that I escaped the situation unscathed but didn't manage to even reach for my horn by the time we separated and went on each others' ways...Getting back to me as a more experienced rider now vs when I started, I am very much more environmentally aware when I ride, making frequent note of road conditions, where cars are in my immediate and upcoming vicinity, which drivers appear to be a liability, what I will do when I reach them and if they react as I guess they will. I look back on the situations I walked away from as a new rider and realise that my limited skill and lesser awareness at the time had a great deal to do with my getting into those situations to begin with.
So, for those who are strong proponents of loud pipes save lives, I want to know: how much does rider awareness and driver management skills count for you in comparison to loud pipes? Sure, you can ride smart and have a loud bike at the same time, but do you think you can be just as safe (meaning able to avoid an accident that is within your skilled power to do so) with a quieter bike?
jmann
2017-12-18 10:18:00 UTC
This ain't no simple question. There are many situations where motorcyclists have accidents and potentially die. Unfortunately some of those are single vehicle accidents where the rider overcooks a corner, stands the bike up and hits a tree Etc. Others involve other vehicles and a subset of those are associated with a fault on the part of the other vehicle. Interestingly, riders that survive for a reasonable amount of time seem to develop a sixth sense about what they should be doing and what other people are LIKELY to do. Thus experience counts for a lot but it is not infallible.
A lot of our experience centres around the attentiveness of people in cars. In the context of the question a significant number of accidents involves the familiar "Oh sorry officer I just didn't see him". This in itself is code for I wasn't paying attention. I find this small sub-group of accidents very interesting in two telling situations: The first is when a police patrol car is nearby in the overall flow of traffic. Hands up all those that have had a "I didn't see him" type accident when there was a police car nearby? It appears as though police presence changes attentiveness with car drivers... The second situation is when there are Hells Angels nearby. Now these chaps are renown for riding big ugly LOUD bikes that handle like a pile of dog shite. Hands up all of those that have seen an Angel knocked off his bike of late? Did the offender say "Oh sorry I didn't see you" or "Oh sorry I didn't hear you"? No they don't seem to knock Angels off their bikes. Why is that? Well I think it has something to do with "Oh, WTF is that noise? Oh shit it's an Angel. I'd better pay attention in case I get hammered..." Indeed, scenario 2 is much like scenario 1 except 1 involves policemen and 2 involves Angels. Both involve something that makes other road users become more attentive. Personally, I think loud bikes have the potential to alert other road users that a bike is nearby - this could be in the next lane or around the next corner. In some potential accident situations that warning might be just enough to avoid a tragic situation. In some, possibly many it won't, but there is a reason that most essential services (fire, ambulance, police Etc) use a loud noise to signal their approach - it makes people pay attention.
My little experiment for the next couple of weeks is to ditch the "Baby Aboard" sign and drive my car around with a sign that reads "Hells Angel Aboard". I wonder how much courtesy or road rage I'll see? I hope I don't get taken out by a rival Chapter
battleshaft
2017-12-18 10:51:00 UTC
ojw123
2017-12-18 13:55:00 UTC
Aphex
2017-12-18 15:23:00 UTC
That said, I think there is certainly a line though between the standard quiet stock units and the cut off gp style screamers and I always like to err on the quieter side, rather than appear to be too inconsiderate
Motogoon
2017-12-18 15:34:00 UTC
The 990 has the perfect window level under tail exhaust that really seems to reverberate well. At speed I don't think my pipes do anything to help me but between pulling the passing light trigger to whatever music I'm listening to and my exhaust I definitely notice people looking in their mirrors and moving over a bit more for me as opposed to riding my girls stock Duke 390 while lane splitting on the highway (something I do every day in dead stopped traffic on the 15).
AGRO!
2017-12-18 19:28:00 UTC
24 years riding I've only come off once (on the road that is, different on the track racing, that tally is up to 4), and that was totally my fault. 1st year of riding on the road I lost the front in a 50km/h corner because I didn't know you had to warm your tyres up before charging into the first corner up the street from your house!
Anyway I've mostly had fairly quiet bikes, this 990 without baffles and open airbox is by far the loudest and I would say I've had just as many idiots cut across the front of me as any quiet bike I've owned.
I can see how at very low speed when filtering cars are definitely more aware that you're there but as soon as any speed is involved where you're actually more likely to die I don't believe it helps. All the shit seems to happen in front of you and having pipes blasting out behind seems pretty ineffective, I've never had any close calls from vehicles coming up behind me either on a quiet or loud bike.
Closest call I guess I've had is T-boning a car that decided to u-turn in front of me without indicating in a 50km/h area, I saw her sitting there as I was riding along so was kind of watching with suspicion and emergency braking when she pulled across ment I just ended up putting a dent in her drivers door rather than going over the bars. Point is I was far enough back that having loud pipes would have made no difference to her noticing me.
Interesting the comment about hells angels, there actually seems to be a fairly regular amount of bike gang members on loud Harleys that get killed on the roads here, whether it's a cars fault or not I don't know.
Now if you could point your loud exhaust forward then I think it would definitely make a difference. As it is I think they mostly just piss people off and give us a bad name. And I'll probably piss a few people of saying this as well but I've often found over the years that people with the loudest pipes are often not the fastest riders. (I'm ducking for cover!) I don't.know how it is in other countries but in New Zealand there seems to be a lot of people who equate that louder = faster.
Motogoon
2017-12-18 21:07:00 UTC
I had someone ask me once when riding or driving how far ahead are you scanning for danger?
I said I've never even taken any notice but the next time I was on the road I took note of what I'm actually doing and I noticed that I'm actually scanning way ahead of my position looking for any up coming events.
I think this has come from ridding for So many years anyhow next time you're out on the road take note of how far your scanning for trouble I think you will be surprised.
DribbleDuke
2017-12-18 21:50:00 UTC
Post missing.
Aphex
2017-12-18 23:44:00 UTC
The other edge is the fact that your louder bike also works in reverse because you, along with wearing a helmet, have less sound awareness of quieter vehicles around you also. Next time you're in your car or truck in traffic turn your audio system off, roll down all of the window and listen to the vehicles all around you. You can pretty much hear everything from their audio systems to the electric fans kicking in to that faint squeal of grit on their brakes. Diesel vehicles are the best at being found by ear.
Once vehicle to vehicle sensor tech becomes more common (motorcycles included) we can once again bring back the basic defense for loud pipes BECAUSE THEY SOUND GREAT and not need to uses the lame excuse that they save lives. Loud pipes if they do have some awareness benefits, that benefit is mostly at slow speeds where the accidents are not as life threatening as where louds pipes sound best WFO. Maybe someone can adapt a vehicle audio beeping sound like a backup alarm when speeds are under 25 MPH and the vehicle sensor is in slow moving traffic.....now that would be really annoying, probably get a few water bottles and objects thrown at you from the vehicles around you.
SD#1
AGRO!
2017-12-19 04:03:00 UTC
shadowman
2017-12-19 08:52:00 UTC
Mr_Trecolareco
2017-12-19 15:35:00 UTC
Post missing.
WHO?
2017-12-19 21:56:00 UTC
Post missing.
AGRO!
2017-12-21 10:44:00 UTC
The cackle of expansion chambers, the deep rumble of a twin or the angry scream on a multi under load - all great. Add in some induction roar and its music to my ears. One of the most mournful and beautiful sounds I have ever heard was an old F1 car being thrashed round Silverstone on a test day with the sound echoing and resonating in ways nothing else ever has in my experience.
All that said the argument about safety is a load of self serving bollocks. On the open road in a car you only hear even very loud bikes when they pass you or in slow traffic in town. The vast majority of the sound energy trails behind the bike, modern cars are well insulated against sound. Loud or quiet will make zero difference to the chances of being noticed, a headlight or distinctive colour scheme moving against the background are much higher on the awareness scale.
The other thing that's obvious if you step even a little out of the bike bubble is that loud exhausts piss the general public off. Biking is not a utility activity its a hobby interest and like all hobby interests it exists on the sufferance of the wider public. Luckily, despite persistent whining to the contrary, we here in the UK live in a highly tolerant and permissive society. Yes we have rules but by and large they are flexibly interpreted and as long as what you do doesn't inflict too much loss or inconvenience on others its allowed to persist largely unhindered.
As an example I have a pilots licence and the old open exhausted machines make a racket. Its a pointless hobby with little utility but the people who enjoy it are allowed to indulge the urge, in exchange we do what we can to reduce noise pollution to villages etc and harmony is maintained. I only have one bike at the moment and it's almost silent. Over the years though I have had ear destroying machines and looking back I'm sure I helped foster a general negative impression of bikers as a result.
Long answer. Short one is "no"
Classic example of confirmation bias, some scraps of supporting evidence are grasped as evidence to support a self serving proposition. Part of human nature I guess.
I would like to hear an H2R in the flesh at some point before everything goes quiet though.
DukeNukem999
2017-12-21 11:14:00 UTC
So yes at some specific traffic conditions people are more aware of my presence because of the loud pipes.
But it's no magic ball of protection, people must ride sensible and know that if the traffic is flowing at around 60km/h the other cars/bikes don't expect a 120km/h motorcycle buzzing by.
Twist
2017-12-22 01:43:00 UTC
to quote "loud pipes save lives, have a good ride...."
AGRO!
2017-12-22 06:25:00 UTC