Motorcycle Riding Tips for Keeping Safe - Loud Exhaust

thevillan (68)in #travel • 7 years ago

Well you might not think it but having a loud exhaust comes with all sorts of benefits.
When out on the roads we rely on what we can see to determine safe actions, but we also rely on another sense which we often don't consider which is what we can hear.

Just like when a police car or an ambulance comes screaming down the road, usually it's the noise they make which alerts us when they are coming up to us from behind and we see them second.

As you can see my bike comes with the two brothers exhaust, which comes with a really punchy note.

Let's look at some of these benefits from having a loud exhaust.

☠️ Pedestrians ☠️

Often pedestrians don't pay attention when crossing the road, and they pay very little attention to motorbikes.
If a pedestrian can see you or isn't looking for a bike when checking for cars before they cross the road there is a high likely hood of them stepping out in front of you.
Having a load bike really helps in these situations, as pedestrians can hear you coming before they even see you.
There has been 3 occasions in the last 5 months of having my new bike, when a pedestrian wen't to step out on the road but stopped and looked at me because they realized they heard me coming.

Now of course a loud bike is useless when pedestrians have headphones blaring.

☠️ Other Road Users ☠️

Having a really load exhaust also helps to alert other road users that you are near by, so they will be much more likely to look out for you when changing lanes if you do wind up in their blind spot during the process of passing them.
If people can hear you and also see you then your chances of avoiding an accident are much higher.

Having a loud exhaust also helps with distracted road users who may be off with the fairies thinking about anything other than what they are doing.
This is how a lot of accidents happen because the drives in front of the distracted driver brakes suddenly and the distracted driver can't stop in time.
If you have a loud exhaust you can give the bike a crank on the accelerator while changing gears before stopping, which helps to alert any distracted drivers behind you. Although now that lane filtering is legal here in South Australia, this is not so much of a concern but I still find it helpful on single lane roads.

Of course a load exhaust is pretty well useless if the car has their windows up and the stereo cranking.

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