Loud pipes haven’t been as high-profile an issue this year as they were last summer, but maybe that’s starting to change – police in Charlottetown, PEI say they’re going to crack down on noisy motorcycles.
According to CBC, the Island’s capital city coppers plan to fight noisy motorcycle exhausts through a combination of patrols intended to catch offenders, and an educational campaign. Just how an educational campaign will make motorcycles quieter is a bit unclear, but the police do seem to be serious about this.
Officers will start carrying decibel meters, enabling them to measure whether a motorcycle is within legal noise limits.
The city hasn’t passed any new anti-noise laws; they’re just going to enforce laws already on the books. Ironically, the announcement came just before the Atlanticade rally took place over the weekend.
Meanwhile, Edmonton’s own anti-noise campaign seems to be stalled this year, as police officers say they don’t have time to enforce the laws.
The Edmonton Journal says city police have had to deal with a 100 per cent increase in traffic fatalities this year, which has kept them too busy too enforce loud pipe laws. They say they may put together some roving patrols to deal with noise problems later this year, though.
The police should be enforcing the law – not making up new ones (tampering). A noise law is the only fair way to reduce the racket which some, but not all, motorcycles make.
You’re right, the law must be enforced.
I’m sure the loud bikers are very happy to hear that Edmonton’s police are “too busy” to enforce the laws that pertain to them. I’m not too sure the citizens of Edmonton are happy with their police department’s excuse for not enforcing the law. Not only should they not be happy that, they should not accept that excuse and demand that the police find the time to go after those loud motorcycles. It’s not as difficult or “unfair” as the they and the motorcycle lobby claims it to be, although it would be a lot easier if the police were not restricted only to road side sound (noise) testing. That does take quite a bit if time and it’s no wonder the motorcycle lobby prefers that to enforcing equipment standards and tampering prohibitions.
The police should be targeting the tampering that is at the heart of the problem. Motorcycles equipped with straight pipes are easy to spot and shloud be ticketed on sight, as should all motorcycles equipped with competition class after market exhaust systems. A lot of those obviously illicitly equipped and loud motorcycles could be screened out at the annual inspection so that Edmonton’s reluctant police would not have to spend as much time chasing them down in the field. The law must be enforced and there is really no excuse for not doing so, just as there is no excuse for not not complying with it.
Uh, it doesn’t say the traffic fatalities were motorcycle, vehicle, or pedestrian.
That’s interesting MrX…. my interpretation was, that in Edmonton despite loud pipes that weren’t ticketed, fatalities increased 100%…hmmm
Learn from Edmonton ..
Quiet Pipes led to a 100% increase in traffic fatalities
Nuff said !!