Cops do it.

 

113" with straight street sweepers, whats a horn????

 

They help in a lot of situations. Don't help much with traffic coming from the other direction and making lefts in front of you.
They work best with traffic going the same direction as your going.
They also work real good in chasing dogs off. I had a dog charging me from the side. When I blasted my pipes he rolled over sideways and bounced off the curb. You would have thought he was shot.
Tom

 

You will get noticed allright, maybe by all the wrong people. I'm just saying!

 

If you had time to pull in the clutch, rev the engine a time or two... you had ample time to avoid any bad situation.....
If you put your faith in loud pipes.... good luck..... too many cars have great sound proofing these days, add to that, the cell phones, stereo, and screaming rug rats....

 

Planning on getting some louder ones, myself. Maybe it'll make folks notice me more.

 

Couldn't have put it any better. If you think distracting a driver into looking around to see where the noise is makes you safer......... If it really worked, they'd already KNOW where the noise was. The only thing loud pipes are doing is ending our ability to have any aftermarket pipes. The sound comes out behind you. It has no effect on people ahead of you.

 

Best defense to this one is knowing you are in the cars blindspot and planning for the driver to do something stupid, to have an "out" if the car does try to squeeze over. You need to plan, to prepare and to have room to react at all times when riding.

Loud pipes give you none of that. These loud pipe threads come around at least a couple of times a year and generate a huge debate. I like the sound that my 120 beats out while riding, but there is no way I rely on it, or even believe that the exhaust makes it any safer while riding.

Flame away !!!! If you really believe that the pipes are gonna save your azz, you are eventually in for a rude awakening.

 

I would agree with the previous posts, I feel safer in traffic with the pipes loud enough that I can be heard, it can't hurt. The so called experts will disagree, but common sense says that it has to help most of the time. The only close calls I have had have been in my local neighborhoods with people backing out of their driveways, some noise has to help in that situation if they don't look before backing. Just don't assume that because you are making some noise that everyone will see you, they won't.

 

Oh, here goes the grannies who think that making a clueless idiot aware of your presence is of no value.

They are right, in that if the clueless idiot has already started trying to hit you, pulling in the clutch and revving the engine will take too long. The grannies would probably try to left-turn-signal them to death, instead, because they won't have time find the horn button- which would take less time than just grabbing a handfull of throttle ( without the pulling in the clutch, which just leaves you coasting ).

The value of pipes is that they alert a clueless idiot to your presence BEFORE they doo something that causes you to need an evasive maneuver. Since grannies don't ride much, they probably don't know the difference. They also probably think it's better to honk the little buzzer that HD connects to the horn button every time they're pulling alongside a car instead of just gently twisting the throttle to let the clueless idiot know you're around.

The grannies ARE correct when they say that making a bunch of noise for no reason isn't wise, because it causes ill will. But if it may save your life, the grannies apparently would prefer to get run over by the clueless idiots.