Dubuque cops are cracking down on loud motorcycles. Dubuque Assistant Police Chief Terry Tobin says they’ve been getting complaints from people in different parts of Dubuque, and that’s why Dubuque police are on the look-out for bikes with mufflers that’ve been modified to pump up the volume.
Clay Wilwert, the owner of Wilwert’s Harley-Davidson, admits some people put louder mufflers on their bikes, but he says that extra noise can be a safety feature to alert motorists a cycle is in their blind spot. “Just rev up my bike a little bit so everybody sees me before I take off,” Wilwert says. “You can use sound like that.”
But he also cautions motorcyclists to be good neighbors. “I know there’s a lot of kids in the neighborhood so I have to come home and I don’t get on the throttle,” he says. “I de-accelerate when I can so I can keep my bike quiet.”
Dubuque police say if a motorist has a muffler that’s louder than factory standard, that’s enough to “rev up” the police. The muffler rule really applies to all vehicles. Any driver with a modified muffler that’s louder than the muffler on the vehicle when it came out of the factory risks getting a ticket according to Dubuque police.