Bhopal: City Streets Reverberate With Loud Bikes

Bhopal (Madhya Pradesh): The streets of the city have been reverberating with excessively loud bikes lately, which have modified exhaust pipes installed in them. The city traffic police have been unable to pull the plug on the bikes containing modified exhaust pipes, which are a violation of Motor Vehicles Act.

The data sourced from Bhopal traffic police office revealed that action on modified vehicles in the city has seen a significant dip in last two years. In 2022, 164 motorcycles with modified exhaust pipes were challaned by traffic police, which decreased 18 in 2023 and one in 2024.

Sources said majority of such bikes belong to a company, which is known for manufacturing bullet bikes. Apparently, modifying vehicles is a blatant violation of Motor Vehicles Act. What comes as a surprise is that even the areas, where the traffic police set up check-posts and conduct helmet and seat belt inspection, no attention is paid to bike riders who have got loud exhaust pipes installed on their vehicles and whizz past them.

Senior officials said any vehicle, which produces noise above 80 decibels is illegal and liable to strict action. They said deputy police commissioners have different orientations. According to them, Hansraj Singh was posted as the DCP (traffic) in Bhopal in 2022 under whose leadership, a huge number of modified bikes were seized. When contacted, DCP (traffic) Sanjay Singh said he would issue instructions to traffic police personnel in this regard.