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Harley-Davidson Unveils Their First Electric Motorcycle
Major Blud writes Harley-Davidson has unveiled their first electric motorcycle called "Project LiveWire." The bike is currently not for sale and detailed specifications are scarce. Harley plans on taking it on a demonstration tour of the U.S. for the next year to gather customer feedback. "The new LiveWire won’t make the distinctive 'potato-potato-potato' chug that Harley once tried to patent. Its engine is silent, and the turbine-like hum comes from the meshing of gears. But electric motors do provide better handling and rapid acceleration — with the electric Harley able to go from 0 to 60 mph in four seconds. LiveWire’s design places the engine at the bottom of the bike."
Here's my issue with the whole loud pipes thing. Take out a dB meter, pick an arbitrary cutoff, find a nice spot out in the open, and start your motorcycle. Now walk in front of it until you hit your target dB level, then walk around it maintaining the dB level and mapping out the distance you are from the motorcycle.
You'll find that loud pipes give you a quadrant behind the bike that's extremely noisy, noisy for a far longer distance than in other directions. But is that really the direction you want to be throwing off noise? Is that really the most likely direction for an accident to a motorcycle to come from? I really doubt it.
And let's be honest, are audio cues really the best cues? When people are driving along, they're not "listening for other vehicles", they're *looking* for them. If you really want to increase people's awareness of your bike, put little flashing lights or the like on them. But that'd "look gay" or something, right? It feels better to pick a "manly" way that makes you feel better about safety than something would have a lot more effect at getting drivers' attention, doesn't it? I'm not saying that sound doesn't play a role, but it mainly plays a role at the pedestrian level; pedestrians rely on sound cues far more than drivers.
My last problem is, picture what things would be like if everyone started driving their cars around with their hand on the horn at all times because "Constant honking saves lives!" Do you really have the right to create noise pollution so that you can get a greater feeling of safety for a means of travel that you yourself elected to take part in, knowing the risks? Does everyone else have to endure your pollution of the commons for your enjoyment? Do I have the right to jet-ski in a drinking water reservoir or offroad a caterpillar in a national park? The commons is just that - common. Everybody owns it and has a stake in it. Meaning you don't get unlimited access to dump into it without the consent of others, regardless of your intentions.
Give a boy a gun and you arm him for a day. Teach him how to make a gun, and the whole metaphor breaks down.