"Loud Pipes Make Baby Jesus Cry" by Troy H. Cheek on May 05, 2008
If you ask Uncle Troy to hold your motorcycle helmet for a moment, and he notices that your "Loud Pipes Save Lives" and "White Lies Make Baby Jesus Cry" stickers are right next to one another, you might notice that a few words have been scratched out which totally change the meaning of said stickers.
Some people will tell you that I have something against motorcycles. This is not true. I have no ill feelings towards motorcycles, any more than I have against cats or furbys. I may sometimes actively detest their owners, but I have nothing against them in and of themselves.
Besides, my good buddy Bob (of the Bob and Barb Show) owns a motorcycle, and I actively like both him and his ride. Of course, Bob drives a reasonably sized, fuel efficient, quiet motorcycle. My cow-orker Guy, on the other hand, drives an oversized, gas guzzling, rumbling monster, as do many of his friends. Guy, of course, is one of the people who will tell you that I hate motorcycles.
"I don't hate motorcycles, Guy," I once told him. "I hate that thing you're riding."
You see, for Guy's vehicle to be considered a motorcycle, it would have to be...
Bob's vehicle is all those things. Guy's isn't. Of course, Guy says that Bob doesn't have a motorcycle. Instead, he's driving a rice-burning super-scooter. Bob also has a helmet with a face shield. Mandatory helmet laws are a leftover from 1940s Nazi Germany. Face shields are for pansies. Real motorcycle riders wear the minimum amount of plastic they can which can still be legally called a helmet.
Guy also says that Bob hunches over his toy bike like he's making love to it. I assume he's referring to how Bob bends his head down over the handlebars to reduce wind resistance. Guy sits back, feet up, reaching up to hang off the handlebars, and catching the full force of the wind on his chest. No wonder he has to stop every hour and rest. That's okay, because he has to stop every hour to buy more gas. Funny, that.
Of course, the main reason why Guy says Bob doesn't ride a real motorcycle is that you can't hear Bob coming from two counties away. Guy is one of those riders who insists that loud pipes save lives.
In Guy's world, motorcycle riders are constantly in accidents because car drivers don't pay attention. Only by being so deafeningly loud that they are constantly at the center of attention can they avoid being made into street pizza.
Curiously enough, Bob tells me that he's never had a car driver pull out in front of him, or swerve into his lane, or cut him off, or any of the other things that car drivers are supposed to do. Of course, Bob has had so many car and truck accidents in the past that the local body shop named the new wing after him, so maybe Bob is just a tad more observant than the average rider when he's out on his bike.
I like to think I am also a good and observant driver, but according to Guy, I must be as blind as a bat, because I don't constantly see the near misses experienced by motorcycle riders caused by car drivers. All the more reason, he says, that all motorcycles need louder pipes. The only way I could avoid seeing the hell that motorcycle riders experience all around me is that their pipes aren't loud enough to force me to notice them.
I hate to disagree with Guy, but I do notice motorcycles all around me every day, whether I can hear them from a mile away or not. However, I have never seen a near miss or even actual accident which I would attribute to car drivers not noticing cycles. Instead, I usually chalk said accidents up to motorcycle riders...
In other words, it's amazing how I can be in the left turn lane, signalling a left turn, turning left, have a motorcycle try to pass me on my left, yet it somehow be my fault that I almost hit him. Obviously, he needed louder pipes so I could hear him coming. Never mind that, in the same circumstances, no one would possibly believe that it was my fault if I sideswiped a Honda Civic trying to pass me on the inside of a turn. However, if the bad driver is on a motorcycle, it's my fault? And evidence that louder pipes would have prevented the accident?
Even if loud pipes did save lives, which I sincerely doubt, they'd only be saving the lives of people who were driving incorrectly in the first place. Yes, pipes so loud that they drown out my own engine noise, radio, and girlfriend will make me notice you pulling up behind me on the shoulder, but why are you pulling up behind me on the shoulder in the first place? I did hear you coming.
That's why I opened my door in the first place.
