Pipes - Loud or loser?

[Big Dave]

Got a poll running on the KR site on loud pipes:
Do loud pipes save lives?

http://kiwiridermagazine.blogspot.co...yes-or-no.html

[scumdog]

Nowhere near as many (if at all) as those who say so think they do..

[Gremlin]

big question, how loud for how much effect? I think a silent bike would stand a greater chance of being collected (ala electric cars are having noise introduced), so in the essence of the question, yes

[bogan]

open road, nah, had a guy with loud pipes overtake me yesterday, I didn't hear shit till he was right next to me. In town, maybe, though I would expect it would be dopey pedestrian accidents that are reduced.

[sAsLEX]

There is loud and then there is the potato head loud some tractors trawl around with

[Jantar]

As someone who does drive a cage occassionally (around 5000 km per year) I can say that I almost never hear bike with loud pipes until they are right next to the driver's window, then I can hear them clearly until they are a good 400 to 500 meters ahead. Its not often that a bike comes up from behind without my seeing it first, but if one does go past unexpectedly, I much prefer to be woken up with a gentle whirr from a well tuned inline 4 or the grunt of a muffled V-twin to the obnoxious alarm of a straight piped noise machine.

[Dadpole]

Jantar has it in one. Unless they are stupidly loud, you will not be heard until it is too late.

[Rogue Rider]

Loud bikes save lives as many as loud horns do too...... so there!!

[scumdog]

Loud bikes save lives as many as loud horns do too...... so there!!

Dreamer.


Locomotives don't have loud pipes.......

[Motu]

When I owned a Norton with open megas and a BMW twin with standard pipes at the same time,I certainly had more cars pulling out or changing lanes on me when I rode the BMW.But that just comes back to the bikes - a Norton is a mans bike,worthy of respect,but a BMW is just an ineffectual limp wrist bike.

[Kickaha]

Dreamer.:

Aint he just

I do about 30-35K a year in the company car (see you in two weeks scumdog) and I've always seen them long before I hear them, with the windows up and even with the radio off I don't hear them until they are alongside

When I ride it's on a Bevel drive Ducati with conti pipes and it make no difference to the way traffic reacts to me

[Rogue Rider]

When I owned a Norton with open megas - a Norton is a mans bike,worthy of respect,but a BMW is just an ineffectual limp wrist bike.

Love that, spoken like a legend.

[Maha]

We have discussed this topic at length in the MAG forum and the general consensus is no.
From personal experience, I dont even hear a bike until the chick riding it is along side me.
Visual wins everytime over sound where this is concerned.

[Edbear]

We have discussed this topic at length in the MAG forum and the general consensus is no.
From personal experience, I dont even hear a bike until the chick riding it is along side me.
Visual wins everytime over sound where this is concerned.

Pardon? I had this image in my head and didn't hear you....

[pzkpfw]

What I get from this thread is we ought to all own twin pipe bikes and point one of them forwards...


(And stop riding over mach 1).