Two motorcyclists killed today on M50

Seems like you're just not willing to accept that your argument is nonsense. At a Garda Open Day a while back (pre-covid) they were even discussing (with the public in a classroom style set up) how to deal with approaching emergency vehicles and that soundproofing on cars is so good nowadays that the sirens are becoming less and less effective.

Thus they're sticking lights galore on the cars. In the USA they're using a "rumbler" which vibrates the ground to get your attention, because no one notices the sirens anymore. Lights are the way forward.

... But yet, without any cohesive argument, you've written off the idea of flashing lights on your bike and thrown them in with Santa and Big Foot (presumably to say that you simply don't believe it's true)... but still you reckon a bike being unnecessarily loud is some kind of a safety feature.

And yet here I am, having only passed my test, a learner for the past few months, getting to grips with the basics, learning as I go, on bikes that are no louder than your average car, and I've not had to beep, rev, skid or slide to avoid murdering someone (despite almost all of my driving being in towns and built up areas). It's weird, that, isn't it. It's almost like a loud exhaust doesn't do anything but irritate other people and adds nothing of worth to your riding in terms of safety at all.

How have you only got 15k km in 2 years?

I'm on a bike about 4 months and I'm hitting (roughly) 8k km. Maybe you need to get out more and practice. My uninsured riding obviously did me well, passed the IBT without any issues, Passed the test first time (with a near clean sheet, too - only one fault). It's interesting.

In this case the bikers anecdotes are "have a loud bike and it'll save lives". It's complete bollocks.

Are you going to make the argument that a louder bike will be safer in traffic, despite other people (not even me) already having established that the exhaust faces backwards and people in front of you don't hear it until you're beside or gone by them?

Anyway, I'm gonna bow out of this thread now, as most people don't seem to be even reading my replies before trying to squeeze their "but, but, but" comments in, that are largely already discussed and shown to be nonsense on repeat.

Good 'ol Boards. Never change.

I haven't made up any scenarios. Everyone else has. I've just reiterated the same point repeatedly - "Loud pipes" are not a safety feature.

My experience with people hearing me whilst filtering, is that they most likely don't hear me at all. The first they know of my presence is when I've passed them. Obviously, I can't say that for sure, but that is what I assume, based on my experience driving a car. Most bikers tend to just 'appear' beside you because they're moving generally a lot faster than other traffic, and have a habit of being hidden by other cars when you're doing your mirror checks.

(unless you mean in actually stopped traffic, like at red lights and such, in which case you can often see them in the mirror first as they're the only thing that's moving, or even if you don't see them, you're not a threat to them as you're not moving, anyway).