Got busted at the Forks for a loud bike!! | GTAMotorcycle.com

Got busted at the Forks for a loud bike!!

C

cruisin.RK

Member
Was riding thru the Forks of the Credit today around 2:30pm going westbound, just reached the ice cream / coffee house, turned right at stop then was pulled over by the cops. I wasn't even revving it, just riding easy. Told me my bike may have been too loud then said to go over to the Church parking lot for testing.

By-Law officer from Caledon was there for testing the dBa level. They tested my bike at idle and and it hit 93, the legal limit is 96 dBa - passed this part. The By-Law officer wasn't satisfied then made me rev to 2000 rpm where the meter hit 99 dBa. That's when I got a $110 ticket. I don't like the fact that they had to place a meter next to the bike to measure the RPM - which was jumping from 1800 to 2200 RPM - they did the test 3 times.

My bike is a Yamaha V-Star 650 with after market pipes - Buba. I've just had the bike for a month and just started riding - what a pain! Bunch of other bikers were curious and were looking over to the Church from the coffee shop - I rode over after and gave them my story - they said to fight it.

Any tips on what to do now - should I pay the ticket or fight it? Apparently the By-Law has been in effect for 3 years.
 
They do enforce this bylaw! I have wondered about that.

The bylaw is based on SAE J2825. Take a look at that and see if they tested like that.
 
honestly, everyone asks me why I don't change the exhaust on my bike. I just don't want to put up with this BS about noise laws that I'm seeing popping up more and more.
 
Correct me if I'm wrong but if you fight it won't you have to remove the pipe or pass the test?
 
daisoman said:
Correct me if I'm wrong but if you fight it won't you have to remove the pipe or pass the test?
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You can probably build an easy defense. The bike passed at idle. Just try and attack the credibility of their rpm gauge. It shouldn't be too hard to disprove the accuracy of something not built for the specific bike;and only place on the outside of the bike (which can vary greatly from whats happening inside the bike.)
strictlye said:
honestly, everyone asks me why I don't change the exhaust on my bike. I just don't want to put up with this BS about noise laws that I'm seeing popping up more and more.
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I keep stock moreso for the quietness. I like being able to pin the throttle and not attract the ears of every police officer in a 10km radius. With stock pipes they won't be able to hear me coming and be waiting for me.
 
[video=youtube;2KdYUhH3JSo]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2KdYUhH3JSo[/video]
 
Sabex said:
I keep stock moreso for the quietness. I like being able to pin the throttle and not attract the ears of every police officer in a 10km radius. With stock pipes they won't be able to hear me coming and be waiting for me.
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I think I'm going to follow this. Would be nice to rip it without attracting attention from every single person nearby.

OP what exhaust?
 
veno78 said:
I think I'm going to follow this. Would be nice to rip it without attracting attention from every single person nearby.

OP what exhaust?
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Search J2825. A good number of us had our bikes tested when this was first coming into force. Most bikes pass, even with rather loud after market exhausts.....with the baffles removed.

OP, you would have to fight it on a technicality showing that the test was not preformed in the correct manner for some reason.
 
Get a D&D and go for a ride at 3 am :D
 
strictlye said:
honestly, everyone asks me why I don't change the exhaust on my bike. I just don't want to put up with this BS about noise laws that I'm seeing popping up more and more.
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Some aftermarket exhaust have baffles & are not that loud
 
Don't take this personally but I love seeing this bylaw in action! OP, like others had said its a hard test to fail so your bike must have been quite loud. That idle DB sounds terrible.

This is my signature
 
Watch the video carefully and compare it to what you remember about the way that the officer tested your bike. If he diverged from the accepted testing methods, then the test is invalid. The issue becomes how to get him to admit to that, while he's testifying.
 
skip said:
Search J2825. A good number of us had our bikes tested when this was first coming into force. Most bikes pass, even with rather loud after market exhausts.....with the baffles removed.

OP, you would have to fight it on a technicality showing that the test was not preformed in the correct manner for some reason.
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Thanks, for the feedback. Where can I get an independent test done on my bike? I don't think my bike is that loud - I've heard other Harley's in the area much louder than mine. I read about the J2825 and also some old Caledon news articles, according to those - I don't think the Bylaw officer did the test properly - his measuring equipment was too close to the exhaust - I guess that is a technicality.
 
cruisin.RK said:
Thanks, for the feedback. Where can I get an independent test done on my bike? I don't think my bike is that loud - I've heard other Harley's in the area much louder than mine. I read about the J2825 and also some old Caledon news articles, according to those - I don't think the Bylaw officer did the test properly - his measuring equipment was too close to the exhaust - I guess that is a technicality.
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Not really a technicality, it's pretty crucial. Perception of noise is dependent on distance and angle of measurement from source.
 
jc100 said:
Not really a technicality, it's pretty crucial. Perception of noise is dependent on distance and angle of measurement from source.
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Exactly. Sound follows the "inverse square law" so having the source closer to the measuring device can alter the reading by orders of magnitude. If the officer didn't actually measure distance and angle from the source, he wasn't performing the test properly.

http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/acoustic/invsqs.html
 
cruisin.RK said:
I don't think the Bylaw officer did the test properly - his measuring equipment was too close to the exhaust - I guess that is a technicality.
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No, it is not a technicality. The distance and angle from the exhaust tip is exceptionally crucial. Sound pressure varies with the square of the distance from the source. If the distance is 10% too short then the measured sound pressure will be about 20% high.

They should have used a fixture of some sort to set the distance from the microphone to the muffler. It is supposed to be at the same height as the exhaust outlet, 50 cm away (which does not look like very far, but it should be measured with some sort of quasi-accurate fixture, or a ruler or measuring tape at a minimum!) and 45 degree angle to the outboard side measured from the center of the exhaust outlet. Ruler / tape measure accuracy is sufficient - it is not necessary to measure it to the thousandth of an inch. But eyeballing it is NOT.

Having said that, decibels are a logarithmic scale. Roughly 3 dB represents a doubling of the sound pressure level. Your measurement of 99 dB represents double the allowed sound pressure level of 96 dB at 2000 rpm (for a two cylinder engine). He would have to be out of position on the distance by a considerable amount for this to be the source of the failure.

If your exhaust system is unmuffled (no baffles, no packing material) ... then I hate to say it, but this bylaw served its purpose. Decent aftermarket exhaust systems have been shown to pass SAE J2825. That standard is intended to filter out the gross offenders - no mufflers, or stylishly short and small (but ineffective) mufflers.

My roadrace bike with the normal Hindle straight-thru glass-pack muffler was shown to pass this test, even though as a non-road-legal bike, it doesn't have to.
 
By the way, with the help of an assistant and a dB meter app on an iPhone, you can do this test yourself. The iPhone is not a calibrated instrument and won't be accepted in court, but you can do this to see if their test was in the ballpark. If their test was in the ballpark, then you are probably guilty (time to start shopping for a quieter exhaust). If their test was out to lunch then follow it up with an official calibrated instrument.

The meter has to be set on A scale, "slow" response. If it is wrongly set on "fast" response - and at one time, that's what the bylaw said, even though SAE J2825 specifies "slow" and that's how the officers were trained! - it WILL show abnormally high.

This is only a bylaw infraction ... no effect on your driving record ... it might not be worth your time to challenge it but that's your call.
 
The next time this happens everyone parked at the coffee shop should stroll by and rev their engines up but not so loud that any individual could be ticketed.
 
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