Jake brakes not the District’s biggest noise issue
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Updated: November 19, 2009 5:00 PM
Editor,
I was beyond incredulous to read in the Nov. 12 edition of The Observer that the council is discussing the issue of jake brake noise from the big rigs adjacent or near to the Agassiz townsite.
The noise concomitant with the jake brakes is hardly a nuisance compared to the leather-jacketed, straight-piped bikers who roar through our community complete impunity. One a quick inspection of the bikes parked outside the Sasquatch Inn at Harrison Mills this last summer, I counted 80-odd bikes, 23 of which had illegal straight pipes. One of them was equipped with double megaphones to amplify its cacophony still further.
The rationale that noisy bikes are safe is statistically shown to be untrue as there is a lower accident rate with the Japanese imports which whisper along as quietly as a car.
Having petitioned the council to request the RCMP to more vigorously enforce existing MOT regulations, nothing happened! So I contacted the RCMP Highways Division on Airport Road in Chilliwack to ascertain the level of responsibility bikers have to operate within the law. I was informed that the existing regulations required that no bike should produce noise louder than 93 decibels. Some of our knights of the road have bikes producing over 120 decibels which can be heard for several kilometres.
The summer thunder through our community continues unabated.
I wonder how these knights would feel if I drove my turbocharged John Deere, minus a muffler, up and down the lane behind their house when they were having a barbeque on their patio with their friends and family?
Edward Munro
