Should People Be Fined for Playing Loud Music On their Motorcycles?
Loud pipes may save lives, but loud music makes enemies.
According to India Today, a man was fined in Delhi for playing loud music on his motorcycle. Apparently, India’s motorcycle laws are far stricter than ours – he was also fined for having aftermarket saddle bags on his bike.
However, the rider, Raghav Swati Pruthi, had difficulty convincing the police that the stereo and saddlebags were standard equipment on his Harley-Davidson Road Glide Special. Regardless, India passed a law this year making it illegal to play music on your motorcycle while moving.
It seems like a bizarre law. However, we’ve all been subjected to the musical tastes of touring riders in traffic, whether we were riding, driving, or even walking at the time.
The old saying “loud pipes save lives” is deeply ingrained in cruiser culture, but how do we feel about loud music? Is it your God-given right to turn every stoplight into a dance party, or is it noise pollution?
It’s a question that elicits a very emotional response. It’s hard to look at the situation objectively, so let’s look at it as an outsider. How would we feel about loud music blasting from motorcycle speakers if we weren’t riders ourselves?
When it comes to loud exhausts, they can be annoying, but it can be overlooked for a few reasons. For one thing, engines make noise when they operate, so a little extra noise from a free-flowing exhaust is somewhat acceptable. People seem to accept this natural fact and deal with the minor annoyance when it pops up in traffic.
Another point is that performance exhausts are usually only loud when the bike is moving, so the sound comes and goes very quickly – it doesn’t linger for minutes at a time while the bike is waiting at a stoplight. Music taste is very subjective. What you like probably isn’t everyone’s favorite, and forcing people to listen to your music by blasting it from your bike stereo is a rotten thing to do.
Feel free to enjoy your music while you’re out riding, but turn it down a bit when you’re riding through someone’s neighborhood or any place where people are sitting outside. It’s our job as motorcyclists to be ambassadors for our hobby – don’t make a bad first impression.
Photos: Harley-Davidson
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