Auditory Pollution

I think they’re made with pride in Milwaukee and I reckon they’re the worst! I hear them roaring up the hill making more noise than an approaching Iroquois helicopter! And if there happen to be a dozen or so in convoy, it sounds like a posse of bloody Iroquois! I reckon the noisiest among bikes are the big Americans, closely followed by the whining Japanese. But there are as many motorbike breeds out there as there are flies on a turd.

The thing is, I have a 1987, small, utility truck, and if it made as much noise as any of those motorbikes, the cops would have it off the road in a blink! You see, there are supposed to be noise restrictions on all vehicles otherwise they don’t pass the warrant of fitness test. And the authorities don’t like old, so any excuse to put my old bomb off the road! But what’s good for the goose… My old truck might be worth NZD1000 (with luck and a tail wind) but my muffler is made from stainless steel and is compliant, whereas a flash, chrome-encrusted roadbike is worth say NZD 30 000, and it sounds like they use Coke cans for mufflers!

Oh yes, yes, yes the throaty roar is the biker’s G-spot, and sometimes they self-modify their mufflers to get the brmm, brmm effect. Well there’s an oft-told theory among those who know, about operators of all manner of machines which goes: ‘as soon as they put their machine into gear, they put their brains into neutral!’  Viz. the four-wheel-drive numbnut who ran over a nestful of eggs of a rare, endangered bird. That was on the Waimakariri river bed. And then there was the dipshit who ran over five years’ worth of environmental plantings at the mouth of the Waianakarua River! Anyway, here’s an idea: if bikers want to hear the thrilling roar of an open throttle, let them have virtual roaring installed in their flash helmets! Then the rest of us won’t have to put up with their racket!

Next on my hit-list are truck engine-brakes! A marvellous invention, good and safe things they are too! However some are so rowdy that they loosen the fillings in your teeth! On the other hand, some are whisper quiet, so the technology is there to make them all quiet, or put ’em off the road! Again, sometimes it’s the drivers with the same neutral-brain syndrome boyishly enjoying the sound! A change of attitude please, pride should be in quietness rather than volume.