I'm sure they're not stopping them for excessive noise...

especially if it's a cop riding a Harley doing the stopping...

I've got Harleys in my neighborhood that are louder than even the Honda's with fart cans in all of California...I'm sure they're not stopping them for excessive noise...

In CA they do. As I said in my previous post everyone I knew who owned a Harley in CA bitched about being pulled over for noise. They all said it was a "safety feature" because if they were in your blind spot you could still hear them. Not sure that I buy that argument, but it was a big enough problem that they had a rote argument to tell the cops when they got hassled...

I will admit that there are way too many harleys with exhausts that are way too loud. But if you ride a motorcycle alot you would see how many people out there just flat out dont even see motorcycles when theyre on the road.

With the exhaust that I now have on my bike, which is loud but far from being obnoxious, I notice that people look when I come up behind or beside them or behind them in the next lane over. No one did this on the bike that I last had, which was very quiet. That bike was totaled while I was on a multilane road when some one changed lanes very quickly to pass a car and drove right into me. She said she never saw me.

BTW, Harleys need all safety features they can get, considering that they have the worst handling, acceleration and stopping ability of any motorcyle .

BTW, Harleys need all safety features they can get, considering that they have the worst handling, acceleration and stopping ability of any motorcyle .

The linked article below also suggest riders of these large displacement bikes (like Harleys) are dying in significant numbers due to lack of experience. I'm a 13 years rider who is very happy in putting around on my 750 Honda Magna. :squareeye

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/usatoday/20050809/ts_usatoday/motorcycledeathsrisesharply

"Jeff Rabe, lobbyist for the Modified Motorcycle Association of California, said more "middle-aged executives" are riding powerful machines without training. "There's a huge group of people ages 35 to 50 who have purchased motorcycles," Rabe said. "But they're still beginning riders.""