Saskatoon is moving steadily towards enforcement of their new loud pipe law, with a test session last weekend to help riders determine if their bikes meet sound standards, and more sessions are coming.
While many cities are bringing in laws to fight noisy vehicles across the country, not all cities single out motorcycles like Saskatoon does. The city has a law that specifically lays down exhaust noise guidelines solely for bikes. They’re not enforcing the law until next year, though, and before then, they’ve scheduled sessions for riders to show up and see if their bike meets guidelines.
Officers weren’t issuing tickets for bikes over the noise limit during last Friday’s test. Come next year, riders will get a $100 ticket if they’re over the 92 dB limit at 2,000 rpm. You can find more details about their plans here.
The next six tests are scheduled for Aug. 22, Sept. 12, 13 and 20 and Oct. 4 and 5.
The new rules in Alberta seem to be working, because we’ve had far fewer noisy cruisers go by our house this season. Now if we could just do something about the local yahoos with open pipe dual sports and the loud cars…
I agree with you but at least it is a start. I personally don’t care if the noise is coming from the engine, exhaust or speakers people don’t seem to be able to police themselves so we need laws that are enforced.
Only testing bikes is not fair. I live near an intersection on a busy road with an 80 limit, which I can see out of my living room window, or from my back deck. While many of the obnoxiously loud vehicles that disturb my enjoyment of my property are bikes (nearly all cruisers, quelle surprise), there are also a lot of hyped-up gas and diesel pickups (some of the worst offenders) as well as some muscle cars and ricers, unmuffled heavy duty trucks, and so on.
I think they need to have a standard testing method that can be used on the roadside on vehicles as they drive by, and then a standard in a controlled environment where more accurate measurements can be made. Vehicles raising a flag from the roadside sound checks would get a summons to appear for official noise testing, and then be required to fix offending vehicles.
Needless to say, all the above should apply to all vehicles. The Sask cops explanation that they can’t do this for cars or trucks because they can’t separate the exhaust noise from the engine noise is silly. Set a standard for the overall noise level, exhaust and engine combined, and enforce it for all vehicles.