Hey guys what would you do in my situation? I got pulled over tonight by my town cop. He come up to me and asked are those aftermarket pipes and i said yes . He said it was illegal to have them on my bike. And that they were too loud. He gave me a warning and said i have 7 days to get the pipes off the bike. They are samson big guns 2's short slashers. Otherwise he will ticket me for them if i dont remove them. I think this is total bs. He told me that you have to have stock pipes on your bike......lol i laughed at him and said i never heard of such a thing. I was just riding through town not being loud at all. Theres noway im going back to stock pipes. He better start pulling over everybody then cause theres very very few that still have stock pipes on . I dont get it. I live in illinois and im not sure if theres a way to get around this situation without having to get rid of my samson exhaust. They shouldnt be able to sell these aftermarket pipes if they are illegal. I thought about moving out of this town of population of 2000 people. Thats probably my problem. The cops have nothing better to do in this small town. What would you do?

 

Do a little research of your own. If there is either a local bylaw, or state law against this, you should be able to find it in writing. If not, then your local PD should be able to provide you with this info. If it is indeed the case, you may have to go back to stock pipes. However if it is crap, then Barney Fife will have to go back to hassling Otis and giving out jaywalking tickets, instead of local HD owners.

 

Realistically speaking, you probably need to check with the local PD and ask to see the ordinance that backs up what the LEO is telling you. Maybe it's there, maybe he's just BS'ing you...

 

Unfortunately, more and more jurisdictions are starting to enforce these EPA laws. But if it's harrassment, it should be easy to figure out. May have to start watching where this guy sits and video every truck or car that passes him, that has loud pipes, without getting pulled over. If the laws effect motorcycles, they also effect cars. Those with Gibson, Hooker, and Flowmaster type exhausts are no more legal than pipes for bikes.

I think it's ridiculous, but it happens. The cops around here don't even thinkbother about loud pipes, or tinted windows (except in small sections where large quantities of bikes hang out and are constantly revving their motors).

 

Depends on your state law. I don't know where you're at, but here in Colorado the law states it's illegal to modify the exhaust so it's louder than when the vehicle was originally produced. I think you'll probably disagree with me, but If he gave you a warning, I don't think he was trying to hassle you. If you wanted to hassle you, he would have written you a ticket.

Let's face a tough fact here. We (bikers with loud pipes) are our own worst enemy. We (the throttle jockeys among us) have made it a point to rev up our loud pipes and show off. This tends to **** of people who really don't like bikes and bikers. These people then **** and moan to their local elected official or high ranking police official about loud noise from bikes and bikers. And the smaller the town, the easier to access these officials. This then causes said high ranking police official headaches. To relieve this headache he writes a memo directing officers to start cracking down on bikes with loud pipes. And as we all know, sh*t rolls downhill and Barney Fife lives in a valley.

Now I'm gonna toss myself under the bus. My Softail has SE pipes with cutdown baffles. I thought it was cool when I first got it in 2004 to have loud pipes. I don't feel that way anymore. I don't think it's a problem if pipes are slightly louder than stock. But too many people are running around with straight pipes and revving the **** out of their motors in town. There is a place and time for everything. If i want to jump on the throttle when I'm on my Softail, I do it out in the middle of nowhere. No one to **** off. No one around to complain about my pipes.

So in closing, If we don't want to get hassled, we need to police ourselves. I know this isn't popular, but it's a fact of life. There are far more non-bikers than bikers in our communities. So let's be polite and courteous and try not to **** off our neighbors. Because I'm afraid if we do continue to **** off the public, the day is going to come when we will not be able to change the pipes at all from what the factory puts on the bike. And I want all of us to still have that option.


I'll get off my soapbox and you can flame away.[sm=shootshoot.gif]

 

I don't think a law could stand in court if it explicitly mandated stock pipes. Rather they could mandate that they be functionally equal or superior in terms of what matters to regulators, i.e. sound and emissions. That can easily get abreviated into you much have stock pipes.

 

If the pipes say "For off road use only", or something similar, you could be screwed. It has been and EPA Regulation for YEARS, that stock exhausts have to remain serviceable, and on the vehicle they came on. It has only been recently, that local jurisdictions have discovered it, as a way of building revenue, and keeping the town quiet.

Read the bottom paragraph, where it says "NOTE":
http://www.samsonusa.com/terms.policies

That is what happens when ya try to make it LOUD

 

run. make em work for it.

 

This is just the beginning of things to come.!

 

All depends on how the law is written. If it's a local ordinance it may be a little harder to fight depending on how it's written. If it's a state thing then it may be a little easier to fight depending again on how it's written. The big thing is finding out how they prove that your pipes are too loud. If they actually have to test the decibels then you could probably get out of the ticket in court. Problem is then you're wasting time and money on your end.