I was riding between Sacramento and Lake Tahoe (hwy 50) long time ago when the muffler fell off the 2 into 1 on my XS650. I was on the side of the road trying to figure out how to pick that hot SOB up when a cop went by, kinda slowed and looked, then went on. Got the muffler up but had no way to re-attach it, so I had it wrapped in something, put it on the seat in front of me, started the bike and started up the road. Sure enough, around a few corners, there's the cop sitting and waiting, as soon as I went by with open pipes, got pulled over and cited for excessive noise. In the woods way up in the mountains miles from the nearest town. It can be a problem if one of them wants to make it a problem for you and those are the kind of problems I try to avoid...