[Geezus_42]

I've heard people justify it as a safety thing. People in cars are terrible about paying attention to motorcycles because they don't take much space. So with a loud exhaust you can get their attention and let them know you are there. I can buy it except for the people that just rec their engine for absolutely no reason.

[brailsafe]

I absolutely do not buy it, and all of the studies I've seen don't support it. The best analogy is trying to maintain a conversation with anyone standing in front of you; sound doesn't travel well in opposite directions enough for any practical benefit, until you're right next to them.

Every lane-splitter when I drive in Cali surprises me, and I'm shocked I haven't accidentally hit one.

[jahewson]

This is an ollllllld myth amongst bikers. #1 killer of bikers is drink-riding.

[mcronce]

That statistic isn't particularly relevant to people who don't drink and ride

[brailsafe]

If you remove the deaths from drinking and riding, wouldn't it be reassuring to know the likelihood of dying isn't as high as it seemed, or even that the fake need for loud pipes is even less useful?

[matheusmoreira]

If bikers cared about their own safety, they'd sell their motorcycle and buy any other vehicle. Car drivers aren't terrible about paying attention, it's bikers who are great at positioning themselves inside our blind spots and at being quite small objects in general. Loud exhausts do nothing but make them a massive nuisance to everyone around them since you only hear them when they're practically right next to you anyway.

[brailsafe]

> Car drivers aren't terrible about paying attention

I feel like this would be a very tough statement to agree with if you're anyone but a car driver. If you meant it only in opposition to the idea that it's exclusively the cause of motorcycle accidents, then I'd agree, but think it'd be a necessary qualifier.

I'd probably also disagree with the somewhat hyperbolic claim that bikers don't care about their safety simply because they're on a motorcycle. While motorcycles provide for a clear increase in risk, how much someone does about their safety is only limited by their vehicle choice in this context, not decided by it. Cars provide for their own parameters of safety, as do others, and in each case people make tradeoffs for different reasons. It would probably be equally silly for me to say that as a public transit rider, if someone cared about their safety, they just wouldn't drive at all, but I sometimes think it.

As in, if you drive a car for your commute, you're probably much more likely to die in a vehicle accident than I am as a pedestrian or train rider, compared to the difference between being a biker or a car driver, but that doesn't mean you're not going to try and maximize your safety within the bounds of deciding/having to drive to work.

[matheusmoreira]

> I'd probably also disagree with the somewhat hyperbolic claim that bikers don't care about their safety simply because they're on a motorcycle.

No, I know they don't care. I literally researched this. I went to my local emergency medical service, I calculated a representative sample of all cases which led to an ambulance being dispatched, I painstakingly compiled statistics on thousands of cases. Among the results I obtained were the facts motorcyclists were about 2.5 times more likely to require an ambulance than car drivers and that they'd be in much worse shape when an ambulance got there. Sadly I didn't have any outcome data, the trail ends after the patient reaches the hospital. I know from personal and professional experience that they die or are permanently disabled a lot more often than car drivers though.

If you get onto such a death trap, you clearly don't give a shit about your own safety. Motorcycles are much cheaper than cars so sometimes people have no choice but to accept the risk. Or maybe they just like exercising their god given freedom, I can at least respect that as a motivation. Don't tell me they care about safety though. They don't. Especially not the people enthusiastic enough about bikes to modify the vehicle's exhaust because they like the sound.

Every single day I deal with people like that on the road. Truth is they'd die even more often were it not for drivers like me who literally accomodate them. I actually go out of my way to avoid killing these people. They do make it extra hard though. They do stupid shit like mistake my defensive driving for a gap they can squeeze through to get ahead in traffic. Every single day. I feel like I'm slowly losing my sanity. Once I had 4 motorcycles literally surround me in transit. One in front of me, one behind me, one passing me from my left and one passing me from my right, all at the same time. Literally boxed in. Steady as she goes. If I had done anything else, I'd have killed one of them.

[brailsafe]

Seems to me like you're on some bizarre personal crusade against motorcyclists, and it seems like you feel like the roads belong to cars only, while people who use other means of transportation feel like the most common danger or nuisance on roads is... cars/trucks. People shouldn't feel like the only safe place to be is in a bigger car, but people do feel that way, because they're most likely going to be killed crashing into... another car or truck.

But maybe we should take a few lanes out from a majority of roads and dedicate them to anything but cars.

[vladvasiliu]

I don't know where matheusmoreira usually drives, and I admit that from the comment's tone there may be some kind of prejudice against motorbike riders.

However, as a rider myself, I do tend to agree. If I had a penny for every stupid shit I've seen a rider do, I could buy all the highways in my country.

One short way I like to put it, is that they trust way too much the other people on the road (cars or bikes!) to not do something stupid at the exact moment they themselves do something stupid. Like cutting people off, riding 2 inches behind the vehicle in the front, overtaking some car waiting for pedestrians to cross – you name it they've done it.

As someone riding fairly defensively, I'm actually quite bitter about all this. Those idiots give us a bad rep and the powers that be are attempting to take our joy away with stupid regulations that won't actually improve anything.

[rendaw]

Yeah, choosing a dangerous mode of transportation and then choosing to disturb swaths of people everywhere you go because you're afraid of danger seems crazy to me.

I'm not against motorcycles in general... safer (to others), smaller, more efficient transportation is great. Dedicated motorcycle lanes? Getting rid of cars?

[matheusmoreira]

> I'm not against motorcycles in general

I am. They should not be street legal. If that's impossible, then they should be violently taxed to recoup their public health costs.

[brailsafe]

Do you think motorcycles cost the public more than cars or other motorized automobiles?