Do Loud Pipes Save Lives?

Do loud pipes save lives?

LEANINGS

Peter Egan

IN DAYTONA THIS YEAR I SAW TWO interesting T-shirts, both bearing messages that left me scratching my head and pondering.

The first one said, “Live every day as if it were the last day of your life.” Now there’s a bad piece of advice if I ever saw one. Can you imagine how we would conduct ourselves?

“What did you do today, dear?” “Well, I got up late, skipped work and rode my Ducati through town at about 120 mph and had three McDonald’s chocolate shakes and large fries for breakfast, then I sold our house and car to a guy on the street for a quick $10,000 and invited the Dallas Cowboy cheerleaders out for dinner....”

And so on. Three days of that and you’d be broke or in jail.

The other T-shirt that attracted my attention said, “Loud Pipes Save Lives.” Do they really, now?

I’ve yet to see any scientific data one way or the other on this question, but I’ve also noticed a curious lack of safety legislation requiring the use of loud pipes to reduce the accident rate on our highways, “...all riders below the age of 18 shall be required to have very loud pipes unless accompanied by an adult, and shall not be exempt unless they can show financial hardship....” Let’s face it; the safety establishment in America and elsewhere has been distinctly slow to embrace the loud pipe concept. Even the statisticshappy insurance industry has overlooked this adjunct to public health. They give me a discount for advanced age and a clean accident record, but have yet to offer a loud-pipe discount for riders over 40.

There are times, I suppose, when loud pipes do notify car drivers of your presence-during a pass, for instance, or in those states where you are allowed to split lanes. But it has been my observation that a sudden, loud exhaust note usually just causes an unaware driver to swerve or make some other erratic maneuver, and leaves that hapless individual with a vague sense of having been mugged. I don’t know if sonic shock waves make a pass any safer.

What loud pipes mostly do is make the public madder than an overturned anthill on a hot day.

When a motorcycle annoys or shocks them, they compose imaginary (or real) letters to their senators and representatives and daily newspapers demanding that motorcycles obey the same noise laws as cars. Eventually, this legislation gets passed, and our new motorcycles are so quiet we can’t hear them at all.

Meanwhile, manufacturers are forced to develop water-cooled, heavily-shrouded engines so they can eliminate the last audible trace of piston slap, gear whine, intake noise and valve clatter from a bike that may soon be roaring around with its mufflers off. Logic and good sense are once more defeated.

I bring this up only because I am in the market for some louder pipes.

I own a Ducati 900SS with extremely quiet stock mufflers (thanks to all those angry letters), and would like to find some canisters that make genuine mellow big-Twin non-lawnmower ear music, yet don’t offend the neighbors or provoke even more letters.

It’s a shame, really, that I have to waste this money, and that Ducati was not allowed to put some nice euphonious (but non-belligerent) pipes on in the first place. I have a 1967 Triumph and a 1974 Norton with dead stock mufflers that sound, well, like motorcycles, yet don’t seem to offend anyone. Pedestrians, if they are aware of my passing at all, turn, look, and give me the thumbs up.

Big Twins, with just the right level of muffling, make one of the more pleasant sounds of the industrial age, as do Continental 220 radial aircraft engines, steam locomotives and Gibson ES335 electric guitars played at moderate volume through tweed Fender tube amps. You’d have to be pretty hostile to all forms of technology not to like at least one of these sounds.

Everyone has a different threshold, of course. I thought the Conti pipes on my old 1977 Ducati 900SS sounded beautiful, but a neighbor tactfully told me as gently as possible that he’d kill me and murder my whole family if I ever started the bike again early on a Sunday morning. So I used to get up for my 6:00 a.m. Sunday ride, push the bike to the end of our block and point the pipes out at the local golf course before leaping on the kickstarter. Golfers, I reasoned, cannot be offended. Look at the way they dress.

Anyway, I’ve been looking for some larger caliber but non-lethal mufflers for the Duck, and the search continues. My riding pal Randy has some stainless tapered mufflers on his 851 that sound great out in the country, especially if you are following his bike. I took his bike for a ride around town, however, and gauged from the reactions of bystanders that they were not universally popular. If looks could kill, I’d be deader than Franco. I’d like something a little quieter so I could rev the engine more in town without drawing much attention to my rate of acceleration.

I’ve always liked a little sound and fury out of my bikes, but as time goes on it seems more enjoyable to have more fury with a little less sound. Not exactly a stealth bike, but something with just enough exhaust bellow and clout to create a halo of aural pleasure for those who appreciate life’s finer things, while passing through town essentially unnoticed by those who couldn’t care less but have typewriters and a full drawer of stationery.

One person’s music is another’s noise, and finding a tolerable compromise between the two might be seen as a kind of minor litmus test for Civilization. Barbarians, whether they write letters or ride bikes, are always loud and they always want others to keep quiet.

I need to find some mufflers that fall about halfway between the personal tastes of Attila the Hun and Torquemada the Grand Inquisitor. 0