When Michigan State Representative Doug Geiss introduced House Bill No. 5726 earlier this year, he had no idea the brouhaha that would ensue.

The bill proposes modifying current Michigan law, which already restricts the noise levels of car and motorcycle exhaust, to add severe penalties to shops that knowingly install illegal exhaust systems. What probably got people worked up was the proposed $10,000 fine a shop could be hit with for installing such a system.

We reached out to Rep. Geiss, a Ford engineer on a leave of absence from the Blue Oval while serving in the state house, to get his take on why he submitted such a bill to the Michigan House Transportation Committee. It turns out that some of his constituents were upset with people setting off fireworks, allowed in Michigan only on national holidays and the days preceding and following national holidays. Citizens then turned their attention to something apparently more annoying than a three-day firecracker binge: loud motorcycles.

Already illegal under Michigan law and also subject to many local noise ordinances, the law seems rarely enforced and does not target shops that regularly install such systems which they know to be specifically made for “off-road use only.” Right now, the onus is on the individual,” Geiss tells Hemmings. “So, if you get cited for a noise ordinance violation, right after you pulled out of the shop, it’s the individual that’s held accountable. Right now, there is nothing on the books that says, ‘If you knowingly sell and install equipment that you know is against the law already, that there would be a fine.’”

Regarding the fireworks, Geiss says, “The discussion came up, ‘What is more annoying, more times of the year, than fireworks?’ I live about a mile from a Harley shop and from a major road. You’ve got people stopping at stoplights at one in the morning and taking off, so not just at idle noise, but under acceleration noise. My basic philosophy in legislation is that you have the right to do what you want to do up until the point you impact another person. And, if your exhaust is within legal limits currently, then there is no issue and there is no issue on the aftermarket.

“But it can’t be cool on a Harley and illegal on a ’72 Maverick. And that’s kind of where we’ve gotten to. If you’ve got an old jalopy, with the exhaust rusted out and falling off and a cop pulls up to you, he gives you a ticket, but he looks over and says, ‘Oh, that’s a cool Harley. It’s okay if it sounds like a ’72 Maverick with no exhaust.’

“I think there has been an arms race amongst the enthusiast crowd that ‘I am going to be that much louder than you,’ and the next person wants to be that much louder. It’s not that I hate loud Harleys—and I don’t—I’ve actually had discussions with constituents who say, ‘I have a good rumble to my bike,’ and they’ve started it up and at idle, it’s got a nice rumble to it. If you throw the throttle, it’s got a nice, throaty note to it, but it’s not the window-shaking type of noise that when that same person is going to work at five o’clock in the morning, the neighbor’s windows are rattling.”

And there’s the rub. Despite the immediate, fear-mongering headlines, Geiss’s proposed legislation is not about rubbing out the aftermarket, nor is it about emissions—the Feds already have laws in place with hefty fines to discourage monkeying with catalyst-equipped cars. The law is about people acting obnoxiously toward their neighbors. They may say “Loud pipes save lives,” but it’s pretty hard to take that notion of safety first from a motorcyclist wearing no helmet, or getting by with a non-DOT-approved novelty helmet simply to skirt a law.

Geiss, who “guarantees” that the law won’t even make it out of committee this year before the session wraps at the end of the calendar year and who is term-limited out of office after that, notes that his proposal was simply the first take on what is typically a long process that gets hashed out in committee—a starting point for negotiation. He never expected a final law to mirror the legislation he submitted. He also noted that a final bill would likely include an exemption for classic cars with Michigan historical plates. Having historical tags in Michigan does restrict a car’s usage to “only for events such as historical club activities, parades and car shows,” much the way classic car insurance often restricts usage.

Geiss is a fan of the Woodward Dream Cruise and all of the shenanigans that are part of it. He’s also a car guy who understands why people want to modify their rides. “I had a 1984 Mustang GT—the first car that I bought. I threw an ’88 ASC/McLaren front clip on it. I had it bored .030 over with TRW high-performance engine kit and Edelbrock Performer RPM, which I wish I wouldn’t have gone with, because at idle, it just has a terrible-ass idle.” Lumpy idle aside, he has since owned several other modern Mustangs, all with V-8 power. At Ford, he has held various roles, working on Mustang development from the early 1990s and later moving to management in charge of production at various plants.

Though Geiss is leaving office, his wife, Erika Geiss, had already won the Democratic primary for his seat and will stand in the main election in a few weeks. But Doug Geiss simply doesn’t see his wife taking up the exhaust bill, particularly given the state’s other, more pressing transportation needs, such as repairing and replacing its already deplorable roads, which he calls “some of the worst roads in the country.”

While the initial headlines may have seemed like doom and gloom for the aftermarket, reading the literal fine print reveals that the bill was simply more about being a good neighbor.