EPA Noise restrictions

Have you taken the time to read the lat­est MRF report con­cern­ing EPA noise restrictions?

Let’s think about how loud the cur­rent limit is. Take the 83 deci­bel max deci­bel rat­ing and com­pare it to this chart for ref­er­ence. Not very loud is it? I know the most com­mon com­plaint about motor­cy­cles is about noise, but I highly doubt it is related to stock exhaust lev­els. If the EPA wants to reduce the noise lev­els and com­plaints, the focus should be on where the noise is com­ing from (after­mar­ket sys­tems and muf­flers) rather than the cur­rent stock levels.

“Loud pipes save lives” is a phrase I have heard many times before over the years. What I’m still wait­ing on is some amount of evi­dence that this is true. There have been plenty of traf­fic safety stud­ies (for auto and motor­cy­cle) and I haven’t found any evi­dence about how a louder vehi­cle is a safer vehi­cle. If there is, please point me to it as I’m will­ing to read up and have my mind changed. Anec­do­tal sto­ries really do not count.

That the EPA is inten­tion­ally bend­ing the nor­mal fed­eral pro­ce­dures for spend­ing money on sur­vey­ing com­pa­nies is fod­der for another post­ing, so we’ll leave it at that for now. Keep it rub­ber side down folks.