A motorcycle with loud pipes filtering right passed me fast in a two lane road while I was on the left lane, I was in my car. I am a former enduro rider myself and don't react when I hear a loud one, but the driver in front panicked as he was most probably didn't see him coming from his mirror, did a hard left, came dangerously close to barriers and did a hard right to correct, hit the motorcycle pushing him to the right lane. Motorcycle barely fit the space there and luckily didn't crash, but it was all happened on a very straight road with no one was turning or doing any movement, just straight driving.

After 15 years, I have enough confidence that being muffled or not does not make any difference to safety, people hearing the thunder but not seeing the source is equally lethal to a rider. I'd rather have proper training, constant wearing full body armored motorcycle clothes and a much lighter/cooler riding attitude (not saying you didn't have / do any of this).

>distracted by their phones

Have the roads gotten more dangerous in the past 15 years?

Also the issue people have with loud exhaust is not that it draws attention on the highway; it's that people use it as a tool to be obnoxious. When I lived in a small town I would regularly get woken up at 2am by some shmuck opening up on main street. The entire town would be woken up. I had the urge to chase them down. It's not good for anyone.

Throwing away the idea that people in cars don't impede their own hearing with radio stations and music; sound produced by engines is not fantastically directional to hear and mostly trails behind bikes (due to that being the location of the exhaust).

The louder is safety is just a myth to not comply. Most of it is ego and show off in my oppinion.