ORBA Convenes “Turn Down the Volume” Summit
ORBA staff members team up with OHV and industry organizations
for highly successful summit with aftermarket exhaust manufacturers
plus OHV enthusiast and trade press to explore ways to work together to
reduce excessive OHV sound and its affects on the OHV community.
SANTEE, CALIFORNIA (December 9, 2005) – The Off-Road Business
Association (ORBA) sponsored this groundbreaking event, which included
speakers from California State Parks OHMVR Division, the Motorcycle
Industry Council, the American Motorcyclist Association, the BlueRibbon
Coalition, the National Off-Highway Vehicle Conservation Council, Dirt
Rider Magazine, FMF Racing, and Chemhelp. Malcolm Smith opened
the meeting with his personal experiences and views on excessive sound,
including his recommendation that all motorcycles and ATV’s should have
a 93 dba maximum limit at the pipe. Jeremy McGrath later spoke
about his personal experiences with proposed loss of use of his private
property in Riverside County because of excessive sound. Jeremy
spoke about the importance of riding quiet bikes and announced that he
has agreed to be a spokesman for quiet bikes and a “Quiet is Cool”
campaign.
ORBA organized this effort to try to stem the avalanche of closures and
restrictions on OHV use that is sweeping the nation, affecting private
and public land including both recreational riding and
competition events and to build upon the momentum of other efforts such
as the AMA’s “Sound Advice” publication. Bill Dart, ORBA’s Director of
Land Use, believes that the problem can be reduced significantly
through Education, Engineering and Enforcement. The enthusiast
and trade press can do a better job educating the public and the
industry about how much we are losing as a result of excessive
sound. They can also educate the public that more sound doesn’t
always mean more power and that “Quiet is Cool”. As for
engineering, the industry needs to accelerate the development of
quieter high performance exhaust systems like some are already making
and focus more marketing efforts on those products. On the
enforcement side, more efforts are needed to enforce rules for
competitive events as well as existing sound regulations and ordinances
for recreational riding. ORBA Director of Land Use Bill Dart
stated: ”We all need to work together and address excessive sound in a
pro-active manner and take charge of our future. Excessive sound
is a universal problem all across the nation and it is the one issue
that is turning the general public against all of us. We must deal with
the problem ourselves or others will do it for us in ways none of us
will like”
The “Turn Down the Volume” summit was held at Pole Position Raceway in
Corona, California, a new state-of-the-art indoor karting facility,
owned in part by Jeremy McGrath and Ken Faught.