Sunday, March 27, 2005
Police: Noise law won’t help bike noise
By JOHN KOZIOL
Staff Writer
LACONIA — A bill to curb excessive motorcycle noise recently cleared a legislative hurdle, but probably won’t help much if enacted, says Laconia Police Chief Tom Oetinger.
Approved by the House without debate on Wednesday, HB326 now goes to the state Senate. It would change two things in the existing law, RSA 266:59.
First, it adds new language that prohibits the operation of a motorcycle with a straight-pipe exhaust system. This is defined as “any straight-through muffler that does not contain baffles, including, but not limited to glass packs, steel packs and straight pipes.” Violators would be fined between $200 and $500.
Second, it increases fines for motorcycles louder than 106 decibels from $43 to between $100 and $300.
But the bill does not address the fact that 106 decibels is still very loud — between a bulldozer and a jack hammer, said Oetinger. It also keeps the existing law’s requirement that police must conduct a “static test” to determine if a bike is violating the noise limit.
Officers say the test is too cumbersome.
But State Rep. Sherman Packard, R-Londonderry, who chairs the House’s Transportation Committee, defends the bill as a step in the right direction.
Coupled with more stringent enforcement of an existing requirement in state law that service stations must do tests and withhold inspection permits to bikes that fail, HB326 can help make the Granite State a little quieter, said Packard.
“I’ve been a motorcyclist for 35 years and I don’t like loud motorcycles. It’s not a question of if there is a problem out there it’s how to fix the problem,” said the legislator.
Oetinger, whose department is the lead agency in policing Bike Week, the oldest and one of the largest motorcycle rallies in the nation, thinks lawmakers are missing the bigger picture about noise.
“The reality, from my perspective, is that motorcycles should be no noisier than automobiles. To allow them to be noisier creates a public nuisance and unfortunately the Legislature can’t seem to recognize and appreciate the inconvenience and nuisance that this is,” he said.
“Banning straight pipes is fine,” said Oetinger. “That is probably, if anything, the most helpful, but it doesn’t do anything for the aftermarket pipes that are designed to amplify the exhaust noise.”
And, unlike automobiles, where an officer can make a personal determination that an exhaust is too loud, police departments have to set up checkpoints and conduct the static test to measure motorcycle noise levels.
During such a test, the bike being tested has to be revved up to 2,800 rpm. The inspecting officer then has to position a decibel meter exactly 20 inches away from the exhaust pipe at a 45-degree angle.
In addition to requiring three officers to man the static test checkpoint, Laconia police officials have pointed out that a growing number of new motorcycles no longer come equipped with tachometers to determine rpms during testing.
State Rep. MaryAnn N. Blanchard, D-Portsmouth, was the primary sponsor of HB326, which originally proposed substituting a new decibel test for the static test. The new test would have allowed an officer to take a reading anywhere within a 10-foot radius of the motorcycle. But it was dropped from the bill because it was not considered scientific enough.
Blanchard said the beefed-up fines “hopefully will be a major incentive for motorcyclists” to comply with the noise law.
“We are beginning to have a good conversation and it is universally acknowledged that noise is a big problem, but this is as far as we could go with a broad consensus and I personally felt that this was more than a couple of steps in the right direction,” said Blanchard.
Packard was equally upbeat, saying “I hope this will cure, if not all, then most of the problem.”
He added that the static test is the only one that the state can use to determine if a motorcycle exhaust is too loud
“To those people running straight pipes, take them off and put on a reasonable exhaust system,” implored Packard. “I have people going by my house and I can still hear them five miles away. There’s just no need to make that noise. It doesn’t make the bike run or perform better and just aggravates 99 percent of the population.”
HB326, however, will not be a quick fix.
“It’s going to take time for the word to get out there and time for people to get tickets” and to have the message resound through the motorcycling community that New Hampshire is serious about eliminating excessive motorcycle noise, said Packard.
Oetinger does agree that with the ban on straight pipes police will have a better tool in the prevention of noise, but disagrees with Packard “that we need a laboratory test standard for motorcycle mufflers when no such standard exists for automobiles.”
Another wrinkle in police enforcing the motorcycle excessive noise law is that judges have the final say as to whether to act on the summonses issued by officers.
At a nine-day rally such as Bike Week, a motorcyclist with an illegally loud exhaust could be fined multiple times and continue to ride, with police being unable to impound it or otherwise take it off the road, except in the most extreme circumstances — when the motorcycle itself was deemed unsafe — said Oetinger.
Oetinger said the New England Compact allows the six states in the region to enforce each other’s motor vehicle laws, so if, for example, a Rhode Island resident was issued a summons during Bike Week but failed to respond to it, he or she could have their driving privileges revoked in Rhode Island.
A rider from a non-New England state who was summonsed and failed to respond could lose their privileges to operate here.
As currently constituted, HB326 “in its watered-down state doesn’t do anything to ease our ability to do enforcement nor do I think it’s going to be the significant deterrent it’s been proposed to be,” said Oetinger.
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