It could only happen in California

Post by **DJ Downunder** » Fri Dec 23, 2005 7:03 am

http://www.motorcyclenews.com/nav?page= ... OTHER-NEWS

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Fri Dec 23, 2005 9:29 am

Post by **Biff's R** » Fri Dec 23, 2005 4:33 pm

I think that it would be great if Yamaha put a nice little message on the side of Mr. Rossi's bike, that told the Cal EPA where to go. OR, they could add a $200/bike "legal recovery fee" to all the bikes they sell in California.

Post by **wncbmw** » Fri Dec 23, 2005 7:38 pm

Thats almost 50K per bike! How much pollution can 400 bikes cause? Less than one old diesel truck I would think!

Post by **scottybooj** » Sun Dec 25, 2005 1:24 am

or how about Arnold's fleet of Hummers that only get 8-10 mpg!!! how much pollution are they causing during the course of a year?

Bud · Post by **Bud** » Mon Dec 26, 2005 9:38 pm

You'd have to have lived there as we did. There's a lot bigger list of insanity and neo-Nazi mentality that goes along with California.

When I worked in Livermore at the Lawrence Livermore Lab, there was a water leak in one of the airconditioning systems out at Site 300 (remote test site). A group of red-legged frogs decided to take up residence in the small "pond" that had formed from the leak (for about 6 months before anyone noticed it)........are you ready? Aw come on, you know what's coming, right?

The State of California decided that regardless of the fact that the "pond" was caused by a "fault" ie a leak, that the maintenance guys could not "fix" the leak without providing some other source of water for the frogs!

As I said....you would have to live there. One of the most beautiful places to live if you don't mind an "open air insane asylum".

IMHO,

Bud

Post by **socalrob** » Tue Dec 27, 2005 3:42 am

Most likely from the sound of the article I suspect that the state is acusing Yamaha of some type of fraud in connection with the clean air regulations, and is thus fining them for breaking the law on a per bike per day basis. If other bike makers are following the law, then Yamaha should too.

BTW, gas mileage & hydrocarbon pollution do not necesarily go together. I don't know for a fact that Hummers pollute any more or less than many higher mileage cars. They probably emit more Carbon Dioxide, which is not yet regulated as a polutant, although it may be related to global warming.

I read a few years back that one 2 stroke engine, like on a bike or jet ski, puts out the same polution in 8 hours of use as a new car driven 30,000 miles. So yes, if everyone does their part in complying with clean air regulations, it can make a difference. Smog in LA gets worse on weekends from the lawnmowers, 2 stroke bikes & jet skis being used, in spite of much lower traffic levels. Cars are becoming a much smaller source of polution here.

Post by **DJ Downunder** » Tue Dec 27, 2005 4:47 am

I read a few years back that one 2 stroke engine, like on a bike or jet ski, puts out the same pollution in 8 hours of use as a new car driven 30,000 miles.

It's also true that a normal house wood burning fireplace with the best emission rating puts out more pollution in 24 hours than a typical car being used for one year...yet no one's jumping up and down about open fireplaces.

I loved two stroke bikes...and I blame California's laws because they're now gone....that's my two cents worth..

re..those frogs...same thing here...we had a planned freeway where this creek was...the locals who bought their houses cheap because of the proposed freeway got together and said...what about the frogs in the creek....so they have now done a multi million dollar tunnel and are now going to put a toll on it to cover the extra cost...

DJ

Post by **socalrob** » Tue Dec 27, 2005 7:23 am

I hear ya on the 2 strokes DJ.

Its still legal to ride off road 2 strokes (we call them red sticker bikes) on public lands between I think October to May or so. I personally ride 4 stroke "green sticker" bikes that have no restrictions on them.

I think the 2 stroke's noise didn't help either, its pretty important for the off road community here to try to avoid really noisy bikes that cause others to want to ban bikes period.

In LA county just about everything from charcoal brikettes to lighter fluid to oil based paint has been reformulated to lower hydrocarbon emissions. We have more than 15 million people living in a fairly tight space. The warm weather here helps with the fireplace issue, I don't know anyone who burns wood much in their fireplace, and we use the pressed logs as they put out a fraction of the emissions. Before they required catalytic converters on restraunt vent pipes, I understand burnt meat was something like 10 percent of smog here. Cars are now so clean we won't make much headway from them, its all the other sources that are being attacked. The last big smog sources are diessel trucks & the Port, with all of the low grade dessil engines idling while the ships sit there. California is trying to regulate that, but there is much international pressure not to. Smog in LA is way way better than in the 60's when I was a kid, we havn't had a stage 2 alert (keep kids indoors) for years. Reasonably blue sky is now the norm. Houston, Texas had more stage one smog days than LA a year or two ago (& houston doesn't have a ring of mountains to hold in the smog like LA, so they must just be polution pigs there), so LA may not even be the US smoggiest big city anymore. So if that means giving up some stuff, then so be it. With the population growing, we have to keep working on air polution here.

On the other hand, I heard from a 2 stroke fanatic that one transocean journey by a big freighter puts out more polution that all the 2 stroke dirt bikes ever made. Seems a bit of a reach, but I will say the Port area of LA is by far the smoggiest area, even though it gets clean sea breezes.

Also DJ, I think Europes polution regulations may be as stiff or stiffer than Cali's.