Chopper Forums

Police wrong about mufflers, bike shop says
Published Saturday November 8th, 2008
By HEATHER MCLAUGHLIN
mclaughlin.heather@dailygleaner.com


A local Harley Davidson expert says the Fredericton Police Force is wrong to paint all after-market exhaust products with the same brush as it vows to clamp down on vehicle noise.

THIS IS ALL IT TAKES: Rod Johnsen, owner of Chopper Rods Inc. on Clements Drive, shows a baffle that only costs a few dollars. He says the baffle solves the noise problem related to some exhaust systems on motorcycles.

Rod Johnsen, owner of Chopper Rods Inc. in Douglas, said it isn't illegal to install an after-market exhaust and they're installed all the time.

Every car that rolls off a factory assembly line comes with an exhaust system that eventually needs to be replaced, Johnsen said. It's not illegal to take that vehicle to a local muffler shop and repair it. The same holds true for motorcycles, he said.

"An after-market exhaust system is completely legal," Johnsen said.

Police Chief Barry MacKnight and Insp. Gary Forward earlier this week issued a public warning that police intend to clamp down on excessive vehicle noise - from vehicles of all types - next spring.

Motorcycles with so-called straight pipes that vent exhaust directly from the engine cylinder head without the benefit of a muffler were singled out.

While Johnsen agrees those pipes are illegal, for $3 each you can install a baffle on the two exhaust pipes and they will meet the Motor Vehicle Act, he said.

Provincial law says that a motor vehicle operated on a highway shall be equipped with a "muffler and exhaust pipe or pipes in good working order and in constant operation so as to prevent excessive or unusual noise and no person shall operate a motor vehicle equipped with a muffler cut-out, bypass or similar device."

Blanket statements by police will hurt local Harley Davidson businesses and reinforce stereotypes about bad-boy bikers, Johnsen said.

Many of his customers are well-heeled professionals who can afford to indulge their dream of owning a Harley, but they don't want to run afoul of the law. Johnsen said he's already had a number of concerned customers call him.

"When something like this comes out in the newspaper, bang, you took probably $10,000 right out of my pocket, easily," Johnsen said. "The police are using scare tactics in the newspaper. The police cannot go and invent a law ... to punish people for having an after-market exhaust system.

"This is not the Old West, and the sheriff does not rule."

Robert (Skeeter) Longaphie, a licensed motorcycle mechanic with Chopper Rods Inc., said police are trying to take the butter off their business bread.

"It's taking money out of the till, and I really take offence to that," Longaphie said.

"The chief of police has sent a message that he's legalized the harassment of the motorcycle community, and that's basically what he did. It's a formal notice that he's authorized his department to treat law-abiding citizens as criminals," Longaphie said.

Johnsen and Longaphie said another concern they have is that if police don't rely on an impartial measurement of noise, such as rating decibels, then the test for breaking the law is purely subjective and that's unfair.

Nor is it fair to pick on motorcyclists.

"A city is a noisy place," Johnsen said.

"There's construction all around. Cars going day and night. People honking horns. Whooping and hollering. If you want to talk about noise, go downtown Friday night at 2 o'clock in the morning. You're not going to see any more noise than that ... there's people fighting and whooping and hollering. Are they going to shut the Tannery down? You can't single out motorcycles."

Forward told the city's public-safety committee that using a decibel meter for checking noise isn't an option for police because the surrounding noise that would be generated by vehicles in the same vicinity on a street or highway would skew the results.

In fact, Johnsen said, every custom motorcycle he builds has to be tested by a provincial inspector and part of that test includes a measurement of the decibel level generated by the machine.

"Every custom bike I build has a legal exhaust system on it. It is inspected by the Province of New Brunswick ... it has a stringent inspection process," he said.

"I'm just a small-time businessman trying to scratch out a living here and play by the rules, and they've really got a lot of rules for use to play by."

Nor are all custom exhaust systems designed to generate more noise and they do improve engine efficiency by as much as 20 per cent, despite what police say, Johnsen pointed out.

"An after-market exhaust is one of the largest things you can do to your bike to increase performance," Johnsen said.

Johnsen said the police force should check out a YouTube comparison at Harley2009FL if it wants to be informed about after-market exhaust systems for motorcycles.

http://dailygleaner.canadaeast.com/cityregion/article/474663