This post has content warnings for: petty grievances, unsanitary metaphor.
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in reply to @literalHam's post:
I've always been told that people modify their motorcycles to be louder as a way of having a sense of security. It's super easy to end up in someone's blindspot on a motorcycle and get taken out, so being loud as fuck is a way of being like "hey! im here! don't change lanes without checking!"
thats a thought. tho there has got to be a solution to that problem that does not involve creating painfully high noise levels inside every home lining the small town roads they ride through. perhaps something akin to electric cars safety-noises, only you can voluntarily turn it off when you are in populated areas and not in danger. but helpful to know there is at least a justification. tho ppl do this to regular cars, too
fwiw i've seen other motorcyclists respond to this argument by saying that the majority of the sound a motorcycle makes is heard by those who are behind it, so unless you're pointing your exhaust pipes forward (which, from what i know about exhaust systems, is probably a recipe to permanently fuck up the bike) or doing some fancy shit with waveguides and beamforming and other physics i don't know enough about to suggest in its place, i think that approach to solving that problem is insufficient
to your central question, i think some people genuinely do love the noise that it makes; engine noise is a very visceral symbol of the power of the engine, and for people who love high-powered engines, the louder the better. i'm a fan of formula 1 car racing and have been for about half a decade (i'll try not to bore you too badly by getting too deep in the weeds), but the time i started watching means the cars in the first races i watched live were a generation of cars that sound a certain way because the engines are hybrids that recover some of the energy otherwise dumped out the exhaust pipe and use it to power electrical motors in the car. the thing is, the form a good deal of that energy took (aside from heat) is as sound pressure waves, so taking that energy and turning it into electricity means that this generation of cars is much quieter and lower in pitch (think the difference between an upright-sitting harley rumbling down the road and a forward-leaning racing bike zooming by). i'm sure you can guess why i'm mentioning this in this context, a lot of people who started following the sport before i did have deeply-held and strongly emotional preferences for the older, louder, higher-pitched cars.
for the record though, i do agree with you that noisy engines in residential areas is the fuckin Worst, my bedroom is at the front of my apartment because of Reasons and my last place was across a river from a highway and the river did not do much to block the sound of motorcycles zooming by, so i can very much empathize with your view; if there's a time and a place for enjoying a noise of that volume, in front of my house at 10pm is neither the time nor place. i'm not sure i have a suggestion as to how to deal with it, frankly, i've never gone to an in-person race so the noise of a formula 1 car hasn't ever been relevant to my personal life, but if understanding the why behind people making that choice with their vehicles can bring you any closer to acceptance or peace, then this essay might've been worth typing
thank you, that is helpful! luckily this was really a temporary problem for me (my town had a fair and a parade and afterwards a few people who had been in the parade were riding their bikes up and down Main st), im just also recovering from surgery so im extra sensitive to any negative sensory input. it seems impossible that there is intrinsic enjoyment of something i find so discordant, but apparently thats more a lack of imagination on my part. i would much rather believe people are callously self-interested and pleasure-seeking than actively malicious.
yeah absolutely, even speaking as someone who spent hours watching construction sites as a little boy and who retains that appreciation for "big engine go brrrrrr", i definitely agree that it's a strange preference/enjoyment; i get overwhelmed in noisy/crowded environments when i haven't geared up for them properly, so 1000% that you have good reason to be bothered by people blasting bikes down main st, and all the more so if that's your particular context of surgery recovery and the sensory sensitivity that comes with that. there's a reason that monster truck rallies and neonatal wards aren't usually colocated with one another and it's because recovery from medical issues requires the peace and quiet that loud engines don't facilitate particularly well. imo you shouldn't need to use that excuse, and i think it's just generally prosocial behavior to not make huge amounts of noise in places where people might be bothered by it, so i'm glad to hear that the situation itself was a temporary one