I live in a city center, and frequently have loud cars drive past. Some are substantially worse than others. The loudest of them are so loud that when they go past I can’t hear my TV for 30 seconds or so, and that’s with my windows all closed and listening via headphones.
Something really does need to be done to enforce the noise laws that are often being ignored.
All motorists are loud. Cities aren’t loud, cars are loud. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CTV-wwszGw8
some are a shit-ton louder than others though
and the difference is personal opinion. We had anti-noise bylaw removed because of 2 factors, the limit was too high for most people (96DB) and because it’s really difficult and expensive to monitor. They need special noise detectors and they don’t have lots of them so they only used them in areas where most people complain and it resulted in zero change while increasing costs.
My motorcycle is loud. Louder than any stock car but it’s far from 96DB yet it’s also quieter than a lawn mower, or a weed whacker, or a plane so what do you about those noises?
It’s an easy fix. Vehicles are whatever volume they are from the factory. Then just ban modifying them in any way to become louder.
An absolute decibel limit doesn’t need to exist. You’re just not allowed to deliberately increase the volume of your vehicle above what it’s natural level is.
Amen. Steel legal shouldn’t include performance enhancements - get a track car and go at it where there’s a suitable environment!
If there was an easy fix, they would have done it. Loud is subjective so you need to set a baseline and you need decibel numbers for that.
Just banning modifying exhausts is short-sighted because think of all the companies out there making custom exhausts that aren’t super loud.
You’re applying kid logic to an adult problem.
Loudness is not subjective. You can use a cheap device called the phone in your pocket to measure decibel readings come up with a baseline for every car and if it’s louder than that baseline then it’s not allowed. Also it’ll be pretty obvious if it’s too loud because the person driving the car will be a chav
Sod off back to fuckcars, will you?
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I definitely think there’s an argument a classic car that was loud from the factory is different to sticking a fart cannon on a car that wasn’t loud to begin with.
There’s absolutely ways to make a classic car quieter. I just think you want to run loud.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
The camera records an image of the vehicle and its noise level, creating evidence that can be used by police to issue fines.
RAC head of policy Simon Williams said: "Our research with drivers shows there is a very strong desire to put an end to the scourge of excessively noisy vehicles that disturb the peace all around the country.
"It’s plain wrong that those who have fitted their cars with modified exhausts, some motorbike riders and supercar owners can currently just get away with making an unacceptable amount of noise.
“There is no good reason why cars and motorbikes should make so much noise, so the sooner effective camera enforcement can be put in place the better.”
Roads minister Richard Holden said: "Boy racers are an anti-social menace and we have extensively trialled noise camera technology in various parts of the country over the past year.
“We are currently analysing data from the trials and will update in due course on any future measures which will help bring peace and tranquillity back to our towns, cities and villages.”
I’m a bot and I’m open source!
Yes, this is something that’s unfortunately necessary
I never even considered that was an option. I figured loud jackasses was just something we’d have to live with.
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Do it! I hate loud cars. Noise pollution kills.
(Apologies for USA centric comment)
I think if that was proposed in the USA, people’s heads might actually explode. When 2 roundabouts were put in nearby, some people acted like the UN new world order was on its way. I grew up in Basingstoke so I love roundabouts. Thankfully people have come around to the idea.
I’d support it just so my dog can walk near a road without some pickup gunning its engine as it flies past us. Any kind of traffic speed reduction is treated with fury over here.
People with loud pipes don’t realize they look like a nobend and sound like this: https://youtube.com/shorts/s0xqopmjbSo?feature=share
I grew up in Basingstoke
You poor bastard.
Hey, at least it’s not slough or staines!
Scunthorpe
Or Hook.
Thankfully people have come around to the idea.
Hehe
:)
Don’t worry - that’s not purely American. People here acted like the illuminati were on the march when a couple of ‘school streets’ were announced (no access during pick up/drop off hours
“Think of the children!”
school safety measures implemented
“No, not like that!!”
Roundabout installation should be celebrated. So much better than lights if you can drive. Maybe not so much for the walkers crossing.
Frustratingly in the UK, most roundabouts now also have lights on them
Yeh I like extra dark roads without those awful white leds. The yellow orange lights were great and plenty.
Oh I meant traffic lights
Ohh they are even worse. Let’s you halfway then blocks the other
So much better than lights if you can drive.
That’s the problem, most of our drivers can’t drive. I saw someone enter a roundabout in the wrong direction and get mad at everyone else.
Have you seen the videos of those idiots trying to use the roundabouts in the US? They were totally clueless, and not even able to follow the signs.
It was staged. A fake.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Kentucky/comments/n3c5zq/the_viral_roundabout_video_was_staged_by_the/
I have seen people drive the wrong way around the local roundabouts. The most frequent error is people treating it as a four way stop and waiting for their “turn” to go, then getting frustrated when other people don’t do the same.
I’m American and love roundabouts. I think my fellow drivers hate them because they require a small amount of thought and planning, which is too much to ask from your average American driver.
Roundabouts are easy, and easy to learn. When I got my license, there were just three roundabouts in my state. Now there are three within two minutes of driving, and a fourth one is planned.
Roundabouts are actually better than normal crossings for traffic flow and reducing the accident rate, but they require respect and consideration for the fellow traffic participants, so I don’t expect them to work in the US.
I agree they’re easy. Which is why I don’t understand why nobody else seems to be able to learn them
I think if that was proposed in the USA, people’s heads might actually explode.
We already have traffic cameras everywhere, and I don’t see anyone’s head exploding.
Its motorbikes round my way that are stupidly loud. Not even kidding you can hear some of them a mile away. I know this because I can see the road about a mile away and still hear them!
With motorbikes there is the additional problem that most of their owners actually rework them to be louder. I can regularly hear the motorbikes on the bypass, which is about the same distance, with a hill in between. You don’t hear the busy car traffic, but you hear the motorbikes.
South Park made a whole episode about these people.
Same here. And in recent years the amount of drivers are pushing their luck more. Like driving clearly illegal bikes, driving on grass parks and footpaths and even through underpasses. I saw three teenagers break into a bike shed to stash their stolen scooter in. The Police didn’t seem to care much even though I called with a crime in progress. Nothing like this happened where I live a few years prior.
Well theres no deterrent these days.
Another one is those electric scooters, they’re a real menace!
I saw a couple of cops stop a guy on a moped who was running a red light yesterday and I wanted to applaud. Mopeds and electric bikes (especially if they’re driven by food delivery people) run lights, go the wrong way on one-way streets, go on the sidewalk… And they’re not just doing this on empty streets. They usually stay out of the way of cars (being hit by a car hurts, I suppose) but they’re happy to cut off pedestrians. Heh, I think I haven’t seen them driving indoors yet but it’s only a matter of time since they’re almost never stopped.
I’ve had a fair few near misses with electric scooters both walking and driving. The main problem is kids who sadly have no road sense and don’t appreciate the dangers.
Yeah for sure. I honestly think electric scooters and electric bikes are the way forward (not wasting energy on 1-2 tonnes of metal while going round town). But until they are better regulated and enforced it’s just mayhem.
Wouldn’t it be cheaper to make it an MOT fail?
The experience in Germany is, that manufacturers will just engineer around it. You define a testing method and they will make sure their exhausts comply in that specific scenario, but are loud in all other cases. The most egregious example are probably motorcycles. The law limits most to 77dB(A), but in reality many are closer to 90dB or even louder. The government has been trying to define better standards, but we will have to see where that gets us. Real-life measurements are much harder to fake and probably more impactful.
People would just remove/silence the mods for the MOT and replace them as soon as they pass.
It’s a hassle that’ll at least reduce the number of people doing it
yeah maybe
The point is that most really loud cars are made to be loud. And usually equipped with a way to quickly undo that, if needed.
I’ve seen a TV report on some policemen hunting “tuned” cars. They were following an obnoxiously loud car in an unmarked police car, stopped them, and took measurements - suddenly, the car was “just normal”. But they knew what they heard, and the measurements they had taken from a distance had been way louder than the measurements taken at a defined distance from the exhaust, so they impounded the car for further investigation. And found a switch in the glove compartment that changed the car from “normal” to “loud”.
You’ve got to catch them red-handed. As long as they can disable or just quickly undo something like that before a MOT , it won’t get a single idiot and his car off the road.
Ban it for all new cars then.
These are aftermarket installs.
Please. I live on one of the busier streets in my town, right by an intersection. The amount of people driving by with cars that sound like someone’s farting through a megaphone are insanely obnoxious. Fuck, most the time they’re shit boxes that go slower than normal cars. People in my area buy cheap, shitty cars, pay to have a falsified safety, then make them loud and obnoxious while slowing down traffic because their cars can barely accelerate.
I’ll take the loud cars if we can get some real fucking regulations on headlight brightness so I don’t get blinded every time I drive at night.
I drive a Mini. The SUV infiltration in this country is making night driving a miserable experience for me.
I kind of miss the days when most people around here drove a small car, now everyone’s in a tank.
There is already the regulation in the Highway Code:
114: “You MUST NOT use any lights in a way which would dazzle or cause discomfort to other road users”
The “MUST NOT” indicates that this is a legal requirement and so it is a criminal offense to disobey it. Now if we could get the police to actually ENFORCE the legal requirements in the Highway Code, then maybe things might improve on the roads.
I mean if that’s the case then they have to enforce it on the companies as well because in 2023 it’s the default on many models on the road, not even with their brights or high beams on.
Just went down the legislation.gov rabbit hole, and it seems there are regulations on headlight height and angle that have been in place since 1989, but unfortunately no maximum power or brightness restrictions.
Which means that although a driver could be fined for using excessively bright headlights, the manufacturer of the car could not be fined for making the car like that in the first place.
Perhaps if things like these noise cameras gain in popularity it will encourage the lawmakers to look at other issues like this one.
Most motorists? Why is it only people who enjoy motoring that get a say in this? What about the rest of us?
I don’t drive and I want them to crack down on those loud as feck vehicles, especially the dirt bike races they have regularly.
Loud as feckin hell.
I think they were assuming that ~100% of non-motorists agreed
Car brain headline / premise. Of course only the opinion of motorists is actually valid, you poor jaywalking peasant!
I think the point is to show that even amongst their peers, people who love loud pipes are a minority that the majority would gladly see being stopped.
I agree now but I once was young and had a loud pipe on my truck and on my motorcycle (always with a catalytic converter though!), I think it’s just a natural phase in the car person’s evolution… Then you’ve got a bunch of Harley riders and Dodge Ram drivers that never grow past that phase…
I think this will solve itself as the electrical vehicle transition happens. Cars will become substantially quieter by default and at that point it will easy to adjust MOTs for ICE vehicles to meet more stringent noise levels.
The problem is likely after market cars and that market will likely persist.
