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Comment by habosa | Hacker News Reader

YES THANK YOU

The vast majority of motorcyles in America are illegally modified to be louder than they should [0]. This crime is basically impossuble to police because you need an offer with a reliable sound meter device in the right place at the right time. I am glad NY is going to automate this.

I used to live on a street (Guerrero St in SF) that had loud motorcycles ripping down in the middle of the night on a daily basis. Every time this happens I am sure multiple people wake up, causing loss of sleep and therefore loss of happiness and productivity. All so some selfish rider can have their loud toy.

0: https://rickeyholtsclaw.com/2016/03/10/the-truth-about-loud-...

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If the DMV enforced smog checks for motorcycles this problem would disappear within the year - the aftermarket exhausts delete the catalytic system and mean that the output of oxides is actually higher than most cars. It's trivial to swap an exhaust but most riders won't bother to keep around an extra muffler just to swap it on every few years.

Even factory stock NOx emissions from motorcycles are ~1000x higher under California rules compared to light-duty cars and trucks.

From some brief googling it seems that catalytic systems haven't widely been implemented on motorcycles until fairly recently, so that ratio may be for motorcycles without any emissions equipment, even if left stock. That being said, my '05 BMW for sure had a cat. I haven't been able to find info on whether they're similarly effective compared to catalytics on modern cars.

I don't completely understand it but California laws seem to permit the sale of new motorcycles with very old designs. It appears that the laws come into force when a new model needs to be certified, or something like that. So you can buy a brand new XR650L from Honda, that still has a 1980s carbureted engine design and no catalytic converter, and that's a CARB-compliant bike for some reason.

But given the low mass, does it have more emissions than a single occupant 2 ton SUV?

The CARB standards are per-mile. CARB standards for motorcycle total hydrocarbons + NOx are 800mg per km. For light-duty vehicles (cars and trucks and SUVs < 9000 pounds) the standard is 12 mg per mile (no, I do not know why one is in miles and the other is in km). So an SUV that holds maybe as many as 7 people emits much less.

Of all NOx emissions statewide from on-road cars and motorcycles, the motorcycles emit one third of it, despite being only 5% of the fleet and putting on < 1% of the fleet miles.

Of course motorcycles are usually a lot better on CO2.

When it comes to NOx and particulate stuff - yes. Much higher.

When it comes to CO2 it’s obviously less.

It's also worth pointing out that motorcycles are surprisingly inefficient for their mass. If you're carpooling with 2 other people, chances are pretty good you're doing better than a motorcycle on CO2 and NOx both.

I would get something like 40? mpg city, maybe like 55 highway. Paradoxically, some of the best efficiency I had was at 90mph cruise, because I tucked behind the fairing, dramatically increasing my aerodynamics.

While I may be knocking on moto for co2/emissions, I feel compelled to note that motorcycles do not contribute substantially to traffic or road wear. If you see someone lanesplit past you in traffic, just be glad they're one less car in your way.

I've got nothing at all against motorcycles except for the idiots making noise.

If they're willing to take on the risk of riding around all these distracted idiots in SUVs, then more power to them.

I'd like to ride a motorbike but I just wouldn't feel safe considering how many close calls that weren't my fault that I've had in the car, despite considering myself a defensive driver.

California is no different than the rest of the US in this.

Probably because motorcycles account for nearly nothing in terms of actual miles driven/ridden. It’s incredibly common to find 10+ year old bikes with <10k miles on them. This is ignoring that bikes are basically declining in sales overall too since the 90s.

People just notice them because bikes are novel when on the road. No different than seeing an exotic car.

See: https://www.bts.gov/content/us-vehicle-miles

They’re less than 1% of miles accounted for. Trivial amount. I still think we should adopt Euro5 type standards or something but it’s just not worth fighting over for most of the US. Especially since a large portion of the motorcycle audience is boomers on Harley’s - and that would go counter to their whole lifestyle.

Note that the largest source of fugitive hydrocarbons is parked motorcycles, because 1) CARB estimates that about 30% of bikes in the state have had their evap canisters removed, and 2) even the ones that still have their canisters can't work for more than about 7 days, so a motorcycle that doesn't have the engine started for more than a week leaks as much fuel as one that never had California emissions equipment in the first place.

> This crime is basically impossuble to police because you need an offer with a reliable sound meter device in the right place at the right time.

I live down the street from a biker club clubhouse. It would be beyond trivial to police this here, but of course the police don't care. Or, worse, probably have some sort of agreement with them. Meanwhile, I get woken up at 3am several times a week by a loud bike that sets off car alarms as it goes by.

Officers can give a ticket simply by inspecting the muffler. They don't need to measure the sound. Non-compliant mufflers lack the EPA sticker required by law.

But why would anyone do that? What's the advantage of having a loud motorcycle?

It distracts from the small pee-pee.

> The vast majority of motorcyles in America are illegally modified to be louder than they should [0]

"vast majority" just doesn't pass the giggle test.

from your source:

> Approximately 60-80% of the large displacement motorcycles operating on our public roadways at any given time in the United States have been illegally modified

you’re missing an important qualifier in your own text (“large displacement”). your source also repeatedly says that noise disruption in and of itself is domestic terrorism, which seems… a little ABSURD to me? really? are people TERRIFIED by loud motorcycles? no: it’s a disturbance, an annoyance, a nuisance, many things. but TERRORISM it is not. i really wouldn’t put a whole lot of stock in this source of yours.

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