I live in a quiet suburban residential neighborhood. Every so often some jerk will drive by in an SUV with an obscenely loud sound system booming out bass notes that seem to shake the house. This is very disruptive and I have often wondered if I could call the police and have some of these people brought to justice - at the very least, ticketed for disturbing the peace.
Sure, I could get in my car and drive about the development trying to find the offending vehicle, stop them, and give them a piece of my mind. They’d probably turn it down if I did. But nothing would resonate in their youthful heads like a shakedown from the cops. That would teach them a real lesson. So would the police even come if I were to call complaining of this noise pollution?
First of all, in my experience, SUV has nothing to do with it. It’s a '91 Civic with two 15" subwoofers in the hatchback, and a “loudener” in place where the muffler goes.
That said, I think this is a matter for the town council… If a referendum is passed, maybe they’ll start issuing tickets for disturbing the peace, noise pollution, etc…
If you wish to commiserate, with a slight chance of offence by the “other side”, see this thread.
Some towns actually have ordinances in place that allow the police to pull over and ticket someone playing overly loud music from their car. You should call your local police station and see what options are available to you.
My dream has always been to be able to carry around a box of hand grenades to toss into the bed of trucks or the usually open back window of these offending vehicles that always seem to pull up next to me at traffic lights. Unfortunately, that would be very illegal.
Here in Jefferson Parish, which is the huge suburban area south and west of New Orleans, there is such a noise ordinance that prohibits such things. I think if the sound from a car stereo exceeds 20dB outside of the vehicle, it’s illegal. This is any time of day–there’s always been a noise ordinance between 10 pm and 7 am, but I"m not sure of the details of that…probably to prevent construction work in the middle of the night in a residential neighborhood.
Anyway, the laws don’t do a damn thing.
The other day I had a guy drive up next to me with NO bass whatsoever, but his car must’ve been filled with high quality tweeters. It was so loud and high frequency that it felt like someone had jammed a hot icepick into my left ear. I couldn’t roll up the window fast enough.
In my locale, you’re not allowed to have any sounds blaring from your person/car/house that can be heard from farther away than x amount of feet after a certain time at night, so you can bet that irate homeowners are watching the clock whenever loud cars drive by. Definitely check to see if you’ve got any laws like that on the books where you live.
Apologies, I linked in haste. I thought it was news on the regulations Scotland intends to bring into place to combat noisy car exhausts, but it does contain information you may want to check on in the US.
That just makes me think of my Dad’s odd habit. If he thinks there’s the slightest chance of anyone hearing the stereo when we pull up somewhere or are nearing a parking place, he always turns the stero down so low that noone can hear it, but never puts it off so you lose your place on the CD/tape :dubious:
I know we’re off on a tangent here, but are you sure that’s not the phenomena of turning the radio down when you’re looking for an address so you can see better?
