Beyond Our Streets RC

Just last night I was riding my bike down a well lit stretch of road. Ahead of me I could see a vehicle slowly peeking out into the street thinking about making a right turn in front of me. I thought to myself surely the car can see me and if not at least the driver can hear me coming. It turns out neither was true as the vehicle proceeded to turn in front of me, leaving no option other than to swerve around them.

You see stories like the above mentioned are common occurrences for all motorcyclist world-wide. It is safe to say the majority of riders have had this experience and unfortunately the outcome tends to be tragic.

There is an argument and I’m sure some type of data that determines loud pipes have no impact on saving bikers lives. Regardless of this idea it still provides comfort knowing as long as cager’s are paying the slightest of attention they will hear us before they see us. I know when I am in a car I rarely see a bike before I hear it and that is my clue to pay extreme attention until I see where the bike is, in proximity to me.

As a rider I would like to keep my chances of being recognized on the road as high as possible. Right now we have two opportunities with 1 being seen and the 2nd being heard. Why attempt to reduce our 2 chances of survival down to one?

Well Toronto your Mayor John Tory thinks that it would be a good idea to draft stronger noise bylaws to handout higher fines to vehicles that are too loud. This is especially annoying as there are already bylaws in place to handle loud vehicles but the problem is there is no REAL way to enforce this bylaw as it is outlandishly vague. Regardless of this facts John wants to spend tax dollars to incorporate motorcycles noise into the wording and upgrade the cities arsenal to collect for revenue dollars.

The Mayor goes on to talk about how much a disturbance loud pipes are causing to residences, businesses, and even tourism. He talks about loud pipes as “feeding the egos of inconsiderate people.” Checkout the attached link to the where John Tory goes into detail about his concerns.

https://www.thestar.com/news/city_hall/2018/09/03/tory-takes-aim-at-noisy-motorcycles-cars-on-toronto-streets.html