The first thing that surprised is why the vehicles are loud. I'd always thought that people install a certain type of muffler because it improves the performance of the car or motorcycle. I asked around for some expert opinion and imagine my surprise when I found that that they do nothing of the sort---the whole point of the exercise is to make the machine louder.
The following YouTube video shows a couple morons spending an afternoon pulling the baffles out of the muffler on a Harley-Davidson motorcycle. (I especially like the point at 7:36 where you get to see the huge amount of fiberglass that they pull out of the right tailpipe.)
It isn't just a question of ripping out the guts of a stock muffler. You can also buy motorcycle mufflers that have been designed to be loud. Here's a blog post that discusses this issue in some depth. The fast takeaway is that you can easily tell if a muffler isn't really designed to muffle the engine noise by one quick tell---it doesn't have a bulge in the pipe. Moreover, you can quickly tell if a stock muffler has been modified by looking into the tail pipe and seeing if the interior baffles have been removed. (Look at the beginning of the video to see them cutting them out with a Dremel tool.)
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| Here's a proper muffler, notice the bulge? This and the next three images come from A Quieter O'ahu.Fair Use provision. |
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| No bulge on this bike, nor on the next two. |
This isn't just a problem with motorcycles. It turns out that there are muffler companies who sell "special" parts to make idiotic car noises. Consider this website by Thrush mufflers that invites potential customers to "Hear It! Sounds of Thrush". I especially like the "rattler"---it has a deep, throaty sound that is guaranteed to arouse a resonant, hate-filled, murderous intent towards both you and your car.
I sorta assumed that these mufflers would be something that you can only buy in a specialty shop and on-line for the "shade tree mechanic" crowd. But it turns out that in Guelph Speedy Auto Service, Canadian Tire, and, Partsource chains all carry Thrush products. I looked at their website and Speedy even has a special heading for loud mufflers.
PERFORMANCE MUFFLERSThe way it was explained to me, engine "performance" isn't the issue. You can only go so fast on the road, and the vast majority of autos can go far faster than either road conditions or the speed limit allow. That---and the fact that Thrush markets it's products through the noise they make---would suggest to me that the noise is the performance in question.
As previously mentioned, a conventional muffler produces back pressure as the exhaust fumes are no longer taking the path of least resistance. This causes your engine to operate less efficiently. Performance mufflers, on the other hand, work hard at reducing the back-pressure by decreasing the resistance. Most performance mufflers do not reduce the sound as much as a regular muffler, but there is a happy balance between performance and sound.
It would appear that making your car louder than it needs to be is a major part of the economy. No wonder I hear so many loud yahoos!
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I thought about making this Editorial about enforcement. Dao knows that there are lots of angles to build on that issue. Police have traditionally complained that they cannot deal with complaints about loud vehicles because they would have to measure the sound with a special meter. That's really kinda nonsensical, because all they really have to do is check the vehicle to see if it has an non-legal muffler---ether because the baffles have been removed, or, they were never installed by the manufacturer.
Moreover, I quickly found out that the province already has laws on the books that allow the police to do this.
(1.3) No person shall install a muffler cut-out, straight exhaust, gutted muffler, hollywood muffler, by-pass or similar device on a motor vehicle or motor assisted bicycle.
Even if there was some sort of stupid legal decision that said that this law was invalid, it could easily be changed by the Ontario Legislature if someone wanted to control street noise.
I suspect the real reason is that there are absolute limits to what the police can do. Everything they do costs time and money, both of which are in limited supply. And police have their hands full trying to minimize the number of people dying because of overdoses and dealing with people in crisis for mental health reasons. They have to decide priorities, and dealing with jerks who make the our city streets far louder than necessary is pretty low on the list.
No police spokesperson will ever say this in public, however, because a great deal of the authority of police comes from them relying on the fiction that they have no personal discretion at all. "Sorry mam, I'm just doing my job. I can't pick and choose which laws to enforce!" If an officer said "yeah, I could turn a blind eye. In fact I usually do, but in this case for some reason I choose not to share with you---I'm going to enforce this particular law today specifically with regards to you, and, you alone". Can you imagine how that would look to a judge? Or the media?
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So what point am I going to make?
I suppose the thing that really needs saying is "what the Hell is wrong with all these people who think that it's a good idea to create all this noise?" That's the real question. I'm trying to figure out just what exactly is going on in these people's heads.
South Park did an episode about the whole noisy motorcycle thing that had a lot of to say about the issue. Unfortunately it worked in a whole gay rights subplot (warning profoundly offensive language) that was in such appallingly bad taste that I refuse to post anything but this one clip where one of the characters admits to being "biker curious" and tries to explain the appeal.
I suspect that the "performance" that the people who use "performance mufflers" are doing is aimed at projecting the idea that they are, as Butters says, all about
"rebellion against the system, a living image of independence, solid, defiant and supremely cool. The Biker is a living American icon of resilient individuality and freedom"Of course, this is nonsense. They are either social parasites who live off their willingness to be violent and run the risk of either dying a needless violent death or spending decades in prison---or are pathetic "wannabees" who feel somehow that they are stealing some of the "glory" of the criminal gangs. As for being "resilient individuals", I had this idea deflated when a friend of mine (who rode a bike too) pointed out that Harleys are so incredibly expensive that the vast majority of people who ride them are solid members of the middle class. "Defiant outlaws" indeed.
I suspect that probably the best "deconstruction" of this sort of stupid, macho tribalism comes from the Who musical Quadrophenia. For those of you who haven't heard of it, it deals with a young man who is a member of a British "biker gang" flavour known as "the mods" who see themselves as being in tension with another flavour known as "the rockers".
For our young hero, the iconic image of the ultimate cool Mod is a fellow (played by Sting) who is "flash". The whole ridiculous fantasy falls crashing down, however, when it comes out that this hero supports his lifestyle by being a servile bellboy at a posh hotel where he spends his days getting ordered around by toffs.
The movie ends with the kid realizing that he's been wasting his life away pursuing a moronic worldview. At that point he runs his scooter off a cliff as an act of liberation from a pathetic, toxic self-definition. I can only hope that the dorks making such a racket in downtown Guelph will eventually make the same decision.
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This raises another issue, though. Stupid men making a racket with their rides is far from the most problematic thing in our society. (Hence the police indifference.) Lots of people have defined themselves in lots of dysfunction, self-defeating, and delusional ways. To a very large extant these are key to propping up the cloud-cuckoo culture that is currently destroying the planet. It might do us all a lot of good if we spent some time contemplating the intrinsic value of what we believe so we can purge at least a little of the idiocy out of our own pathetic little lives.
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