Loud vs quiet exhaust?

[Motorcycle Mike]

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Question, if being heard is such a significant safety factor, why is it deaf people can drive without restriction?

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[PrivatePilot]

Question, if being heard is such a significant safety factor, why is it deaf people can drive without restriction?

Because deaf people, like blind people, tend to use their remaining senses better than the rest of us...and it's not a critical sense (like vision) that makes them unable to operate a vehicle.

However, if one day they suddenly HAD hearing again I think it would be naive to suggest they wouldn't once again use that sense to listen for things again while driving.

 

[inreb]

Question, if being heard is such a significant safety factor, why is it deaf people can drive without restriction?

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Because other senses heightened. Especially taste.

 

[PrivatePilot]

Especially taste.

That's one sense I've left out of this conversation. If someone's tasting my motorcycle on a stretch of road somewhere, well, I'm having a bad day. Or something really weird is going on in a parking lot.

 

[JoeyB]

Question, if being heard is such a significant safety factor, why is it deaf people can drive without restriction?

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Well isn't it obvious?! It's because the road signs aren't in braille.

 

[inreb]

That's one sense I've left out of this conversation. If someone's tasting my motorcycle on a stretch of road somewhere, well, I'm having a bad day. Or something really weird is going on in a parking lot.

Well that's just queer. I was talking about the taste portion of the driver exam.

 

[PrivatePilot]

Well that's just queer. I was talking about the taste portion of the driver exam.

I have a class A licence, there's a smell portion in addition to the taste portion of the exam.

 

[PrivatePilot]

Well isn't it obvious?! It's because the road signs aren't in braille.

 

[Motorcycle Mike]

So tell me, what senses are heightened for deaf people that are relevant to detecting motorcycles? Do they suddenly get super vision? Do their spiddy senses raise the hair on their arms if a bike is 40 feet behind them in their blind spot?
Do they smell the bike coming, or just the rider?

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[JoeyB]

Some things can't be explained, like magnets for instance.....

 

[Blackfin]

MM, re "if being heard is such a significant safety factor...": The "significance" is scientifically unknown because, as hedo has pointed out, there is no known public-domain objective study on the matter.

What I do know is that hearing is a pretty important and very well developed sense in human beings. Sound travels at about 1120 ft/sec. Our ears are separated by something like 6-inches, give or take. This means that a pressure pulse from the right hits the left ear 445 microseconds (445 millionths of a second) later. Despite this tiny time difference, our brains are able to clearly discern the direction from which sound is coming to a very high degree. This is a powerful, useful sense. But it's not so critical as to be required by law when driving because we have other senses. Still, my feeling is that all else being equal, the lack of that sense is going to result in a less-safe driver (again, all else being equal.)

I know we as motorcyclists have a limited number of things at our disposal to assist other drivers know we're there. Of the five senses most drivers posses, we can make use of only two: sight and hearing. Some choose to limit themselves to the one sense (vision); I'd rather use both to the maximum degree I can without pissing off (too many) others.

I also know that before people object to the volume of a motorcycle they heard it first; thanks to the sound they were aware it was there and only after that did they judge its sound emissions obnoxious. Key to this is the awareness that happened first. The remaining issue then is finding the balance between obnoxiousness and utility.

 

[inreb]

So tell me, what senses are heightened for deaf people that are relevant to detecting motorcycles? Do they suddenly get super vision? Do their spiddy senses raise the hair on their arms if a bike is 40 feet behind them in their blind spot?
Do they smell the bike coming, or just the rider?

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Shifty eyes, nanosecond horizon delamination, sphincter pulse danger detection and the previously mentioned taste just to name a few.

 

[dirtbag]

plain and simply Loud pipes risk rights and like my t-shirt says if loud pipes save lives imagine what learning to ride could do.

 

[Joe Bass]

Hey, points for honesty at least. This is my other vehicle that allows me to retain my man card.

Lolz was just kidding. Nice truck!

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[dricked]

Sound pressures waves travel in all directions from the exhaust outlet. Yes, in some directions the intensity is higher but you still hear the bike from all directions, in the garage or not.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iRWp9rhfS_0

At the beginning of the vid I hear the bikes before I see them. How is this possible?

Well put.

If someone comes here with a hard-assed "I run straight pipes, they save lives, screw you, I don't care if your dishes rattle in your kitchen when I drive past your house" attitude, I think people are right to chastise that. On the flipside, to have an attitude that driving a silent/quiet bike and relying exclusively on your super duper mega elite invincible driving skillz is going to keep you 100% safe in every possible scenario forever and ever until the end of days, well, that's equally deserving of chastising IMHO.



Better yet, here's a video that took me about 5 seconds to hunt up on YouTube. Skip to about the 0:50 mark (just before police karma hits, but that's another story) and observe how far out you can very clearly HEAR the motorcycle while it's coming at you.

[video=youtube;hkql1mB1P-w]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hkql1mB1P-w[/video]

Again, the old "you only hear the exhaust out the back" argument is ridiculous as well. Dricked, your example is a poor one - iPhone 4 (crappy quality in that generation) on a windy day on top of it doesn't equal a good recording platform.

I'm converted! Loud pipes save lives!

 

[caboose56]

Perhaps not but there are other situations where being heard would be beneficial and add an element of safety.

And BTW, motorcycle exhausts are basically omni-directional. When you see a MotoGP race or watch Isle Of Man TT racing, do you hear the bikes coming down the straight before you see them, yes or no? Or are the bikes traveling faster than the speed of sound?

You don't know much about physics, sound pressure, wavelengths or amplitude do you?


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[Blackfin]

You don't know much about physics, sound pressure, wavelengths or amplitude do you?

Please do continue this train of thought. I'm curious as to why you appear to think that motorcycle exhaust cannot be heard anywhere but behind the bike.

This ought to be good.

 

[Baggsy]

I guess some people just prefer using a rock instead of a hammer.

in the meantime do us a favour and always ride in the back please.

 

[caboose56]

Please do continue this train of thought. I'm curious as to why you appear to think that motorcycle exhaust cannot be heard anywhere but behind the bike.

This ought to be good.

I am not claiming that they can not be heard from in front of the bike.

You stated that a motorcycle exhaust is "omni-directional" which is factually not true.

Sound pressure is directed primarily in the direction of the exhaust exit. The amplitude of pressure waves will be highest when measured coaxially in relation to the exhaust exit. Higher amplitude means louder. They are not "omni-directional".


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[inreb]

This is good news. Whoever doesn't like loud exhaust can choose to not stand in path of primary sound pressure.

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