Why do motorcycles roar?

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Is that revving of the engine really necessary or is it just done for the sake of revving? I have never owned a motorcycle so really don't know or understand. I know that the gratuitous sound of someone revving a motorcycle engine as they cruise by me is one of the sounds that attacks my senses to such a degree that I just want to take a baseball bat and thrash the rider. If cars can be quiet, why can't motorcycles? Isn't there a legal decibel limit in some communities, at least as applies to music? Why not motorcycles. Harley-Davidson is doing a test run of an E-motorcycle, the LiveWire and I am wondering how they will accommodate those riders who love that "growl."

I think "SOME" riders rev their engines like this specifically and intentionally BECAUSE they know it irritates the sensibilities of what I believe is the majority of society.

Motorcycles dont have mufflers. So thats why they make more noise than cars.

But why they rev while at stop lights Im not sure. Except maybe to keep the rpms up so they can outrun the traffic when the light changes.

i hate motorcyclists! i live on a main street which is already tourture with the non-stop traffic.

in the summer time, every few minutes a motorcycle goes roaring by. i hate it!

some of them honestly sound like a cheap bike thats had a pile of crappy hair dryers attached to it, the ones with lower cc seem to have a worser noise out of them than high cc.

like cuisinart filled with bicycle chains. Maybe some people modify them with motorcycle "glass packs" but they rev them while they are moving too, and not just during shifting. I do think a lot of them do it just to p*ss people off.

I hate the sound of motorcycles, I live in a town that's a popular motorcycle spot and all day during the summer I put up with the sound of people revving their bikes and generally being obnoxious, I know some bikers are o.k people but the sound goes right through me and eats away at my sanity all day.

You kind of have to separate V-twins like Harley-Davidsons and the typical Asian bikes with 4 cylinders as there completely different designs. Motorcycles have short exhaust pipes and often, more so with the Asian bikes need to be turned to fairly high RPM's to make decent power. Many people like the sound and do things to make them louder. I think many motorcycles have higher compression ratios then most cars so that would add to the volume I would think.

I like the sound of a good sounding exhaust venting a well built engine personally, too bad the stupid straight pipes most of the H-D folks use make the maximum amount of decibels are also the worst for making power.

Because motorcyclists like that sound. Didn't you ever see a cop Harley? They leave the factory muffler on and they're amazingly quiet. Private owners rip that thing off as soon as they get home from the dealer, substituting a glass pack or straight pipe. They can be obnoxious all right.