How about a noise check?

We are population much concerned about our quality of life, which often translates into the quality of our environment and our environment’s impact on our senses.

For example:

• As a community in New York State, we don’t like tobacco smoke in an indoor environment, so we have pretty much outlawed it.

• Many of us prefer clearly seeing the night sky to the convenience of public streetlighting.

• In addition to the ecological damage done in clear-cutting our ridgelines, we also hear concerns voiced about retaining something known as our “viewscape.”

• During a recent Town of Highland Planning Board discussion on a proposal for a new automatic car wash in Barryville, a harmonizing color scheme for the building came into question.

These are only a few examples, but they clearly indicate that we are more and more a society concerned about its surroundings.

Given that these concerns span such a broad spectrum of everyday activities, one may well wonder how the roar of the motorcycle has escaped public scrutiny.

An automobile or a truck with a modified or deficient exhaust system will turn heads on the street and is subject to police scrutiny and citation.

Why then, have herds of rumbling, roaring motorcycles been exempt from this scrutiny and allowed to destroy the tranquillity of every fair-weather weekend day?

Most towns have noise provisions in their zoning ordinances and many go to great lengths to purchase expensive diagnostic equipment to measure noise. In the Town of Lumberland, if you’re going to have a graduation party for your child or a wedding reception at your home, you’re expected to get a noise permit if those celebrations extend into the evening hours.

But you can jump on your motorcycle and roar through any of our towns at any hour of the day or night and not draw the ire of any branch of law enforcement. For many, the roar has become so commonplace as be accepted as background noise.

The motorcycle mystique is that of the free spirit, unfettered from the isolation and confinement of the family van or SUV. The tradition of the motorcycle even rejects the mundane safety provided by a helmet in many states. So too, it often becomes a motorcycling standard to remove or alter the factory exhaust systems that hinder the roar of their engines.

However, understanding the rationale does not reduce the impact of the noise these machines make, nor does it present a very good argument for exempting them from the environmental scrutiny that we readily accept elsewhere in our society.

So, what’s to be done about it? Remedy should come at the inspection station. These machines require annual inspection just like the family car, but mufflers can be added and removed to suit the occasion.

And then many police officers will tell you privately that it can be difficult if not impossible to stop motorcyclists traveling in large groups. It’s like swatting gnats with a baseball bat.

But still there is the noise. Perhaps a remedy could be in the revival of an old tradition in the New York State Police, the motorcycle-mounted state trooper. Perhaps, as the state police found that souped-up Ford Mustangs were necessary to catch high-flying speeders on the interstates, motorcycles could be re-employed to efficiently police their own kind. If nothing else, they could provide a new standard for the noise a motorcycle is expected to make.

David Hulse, News Editor