The Harley-Davidson owners meeting here on a recent weekend may have brought money to our city, but also brought an unwanted byproduct--noise ["Hear those riders rumble," June 22].
Now before the riders get all up in arms that I am against motorcycles, I have been riding motorcycles since I was 10 years old. That makes 30 years of riding.
I love motorcycles, but
I have lived in downtown Fredericksburg for five years now, and every year the noise from modified exhaust systems gets worse.
The blame goes to those egotistical riders who are so starved for attention that they feel they must modify their exhausts to be obnoxiously loud.
They sadly cling to the false idea that those who hear them will think they are "cool" and thus are able to bury their insecurities under a blanket of exhaust noise.
Those who argue that "loud pipes save lives" have no understanding of the physics of sound propagation and are mindlessly repeating the mantra used to justify this nuisance.
It's time riders with loud pipes be ticketed more often for disturbing the peace. If they don't like that, they can choose another destination.
Enough is enough!
Brett Anderson
Fredericksburg